How many commercials will you see while streaming on Tubi?
How many commercials will you see while streaming on Tubi?
How does the ad experience on a free streaming service compare to paid counterparts?
Streaming ads are simply a fact of life these days. Every major paid streaming service in the United States — with the exception of Apple TV+ — offers an ad plan these days, and the experience can vary greatly from service to service. But how does a streaming service that was always intended to be ad-supported stack up to premium services? I tested Tubi to find out the answer to that question, and you can read more about my experiment below.
Everything you need to know about the ad experience on Tubi
How many ads does Tubi show on licensed TV shows?
As I always do, I tried out two different lengths of licensed TV shows on Tubi to see how many ads I was shown in the process. As my half-hour series, I chose “Yu-Gi-Oh!,” and for my 60-minute selection I picked “Nikita.”
I saw about what I expected to see when watching these shows. After a 30-second pre-roll ad, I saw two ad breaks per episode when watching “Yu-Gi-Oh!” Those ad breaks were each 90 to 105 seconds long, adding up to around three to three and a half minutes of ads per 30-minute episode.
The episodes of “Nikita” had the same ad break lengths and included a pre-roll ad and mid-roll commercials. However, I saw two more breaks per episode than I did in my half-hour show test, adding up to between four and six minutes of ads per hour-long episode.
How many ads does Tubi show on original TV shows?
For this test, I tried out episodes of the Tubi original shows “The Freak Brothers” as well as “Dead Hot.” “The Freak Brothers” is a 30-minute show, and “Dead Hot” has 60-minute episodes.
The ad experience here was consistent with that which I saw on licensed Tubi shows. Both titles had pre-roll ads, and once playback began, “The Freak Brothers” showed me around three or four minutes of commercials per episode, while “Dead Hot” episodes had around six minutes of commercials each.
How many ads does Tubi show with movies?
“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” was the film I chose to test out this question. Ad breaks were the same length as they were when I watched Tubi TV shows, at around 90 seconds each or a little longer. There were certainly more of them, however; I saw around six ad breaks during my stream of the movie, coming out to around 10 or so minutes of ads during the film in total.
Once again, the Tubi ad experience was the same for an original movie. “A Good Man 2” had the same length of ad break, though it had one more break during playback, which added up to around 12 minutes of total ads during the film.
Does Tubi offer ads during kids content?
Yes, but the experience here is a bit inconsistent. For example, when I turned on “Yu-Gi-Oh!,” I saw the same number and type of ads that I saw during every other type of content. However, when I tried a show for younger kids — “The Magic School Bus,” in this instance — I saw no ads. It appears Tubi follows the pattern used by other streamers, putting ads on content that older kids and potentially nostalgia-seeking adults enjoy, but not on titles for younger children.
Does Tubi have pause ads?
Yes, Tubi includes pause ads with every type of content I tested, except “The Magic School Bus.”
Bottom line
I found the ad experience on Tubi to be somewhat refreshing. As a free streaming service, I expected it to pile on the commercials, but it didn’t. The ad load was equivalent to that I experienced with many paid streaming services and lighter than I did while watching Hulu. Although I saw the same ad for athletic shoes multiple times, it was fairly easy to tune out during ad breaks.
If you’re looking for a free streaming service that doesn’t overplay its hand with ads, Tubi is definitely one to try out. You won’t need a credit card, or even an email address to sign up for Tubi; just download the app and start watching whenever you want.
Tubi
Tubi is a free video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 200,000+ movies and TV episodes - more than any other streaming service. Its ad breaks are shorter and less frequent than most free services. Fox executives have called their service “TV on steroids.”