Today, Tubi announced its annual audience report findings from “The Stream: 2022 Audience Insights for Brands.” The report provides insight into the explosive growth of ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) services, which is set to surpass SVOD in 2022 in terms of audience size. Data reveals that Tubi had 3.6 billion hours streamed in 2021, a 40% YoY increase in total viewing time.
Natalie Bastian, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Tubi said, “Our findings in The Stream bring AVOD to the forefront of streaming investment planning for brands in 2022, as well as a necessary complement to existing linear TV strategy… At Tubi, we’ve focused on connecting with new communities — both by accessing FOX’s desirable audience as well as partnering with next generation platforms to reach audiences not found on linear television — and it’s paid off with rapid growth among key audience segments.”
Free streaming’s audience will grow larger than paid streaming by mid-2022. AVOD audiences grew twice as fast (+16%) as SVOD (+8%) in 2021. In 2022, The Stream predicts that the current ~5% gap in market penetration will close, with the number of AVOD users surpassing SVOD. While SVOD is still in the lead for total view time (TVT), AVOD has a great chance of expanding TVT.
Furthermore, Tubi’s incremental audience continues to complement other video investments – with 71% of Tubi streamers unreachable on cable, 56% unreachable on linear TV, and 27% unreachable on any other major free streaming platform.
Overall, it’s not surprising that streaming will become the fastest-growing video format in both viewership and media investment. Connected TV and over-the-top ad spend grew 34% in 2021, compared to 7.4% for national broadcast and cable. Tubi’s report predicts that half of all internet users will use free streaming services by 2024, and by 2026, ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) revenues will triple 2021 levels, reaching $31.5 billion.
Free streaming platforms are garnering distinct, loyal audiences, while maintaining audience overlap with SVOD. Streamers continue to gravitate to specific AVOD services as their “television of choice,” while being selective about which services they pay a premium for. Factors that determine AVOD selection in a crowded marketplace include ease of use, content, personalization, and user experience.
The most common amount of AVOD subscriptions per household on a monthly basis was more than 5 (46%), whereas 32% of AVOD users had more than 3 subscriptions and 20% used 1-2 services a month.
As of recent, 27% of Tubi streamers can’t be reached on any other major AVOD service: 78% aren’t on Peacock, 68% aren’t on the Roku Channel, 62% aren’t on Hulu, and 50% aren’t on Pluto. However, 71% use SVOD service Netflix, currently unreachable by ads.
Audience Demographics
Also, free streaming viewership is expanding rapidly among educated and higher-income earners and becoming more reflective of national audience averages. Young streamers were in the lead for AVOD, however, older, educated, and affluent audiences are growing rapidly. Tubi has seen double-digit growth in all audience segments over the past year — with the most growth among college-educated and affluent ($100k+ HHI) demos.
With an average viewer of 16 years old and up, Tubi’s audience has become nationally representative across geographic, economic, and educational segments, and includes a large multicultural audience, comprising 40% of its user base.
Younger streamers (18-34) make up 35% of monthly active users and 77% of them said they didn’t have cable. Their top genres were Comedy, Drama, Kids & Family, Reality, and Action with favorite titles on Tubi being “Degrassi,” “Hells Kitchen,” and “The PJs.” Movie genres that were on top were Comedy, Drama, Action, Horror, and Thriller. The top film titles were “All About the Benjamins,” “Annie,” and “Superfly.”
Older streamers (34-54) favorited shows like “Forensic Files,” “Duck Dynasty,” and “Columbo” the most and had streamed the most series with Comedy, Drama, Kids & Family, Action, and Documentary as top genres. The common favorite movie genres were Action, Horror, Drama, Comedy, and Documentary, with the most-liked titles being “Gods of Egypt,” “The Last Witch Hunter,” and “Man on Fire.” The demographic made up 35% of monthly active users on Tubi.
Families had genres like Kids & Family, Soap Operas/Telenovelas, Animation, Adult Animation, and Horror/Thriller among the top series to stream. “Ninjago,” “Transformers,” and “Yo Gabba Gabba” were the most-watched series. Families drifted towards more Animation, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror, and Kids & Family movies such as “Looney Toons Back in Action,” “Kung Fu Panda,” and “Robots.” 76% of families with kids don’t have cable and 83% streamed via OTT in the past month.
Tubi commissioned survey research with MarketCast, conducting an online survey of 6,003 adult streamers (18 and up) in Q4 2021. Tubi also included analysis from a number of first-party and third-party data sources, focusing on a combination of MRI and self-reported data. Additional partnerships included Advertiser Perceptions, Kantar, MRI-Simmons, NinthDecimal, and TVSquared.
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.”