Movies Reportedly the Most Popular Genre on Pluto TV; Why is it Lagging So Far Behind Tubi?

Audiences are quite spoiled for choice when it comes to free streaming options nowadays. There are now multiple services available that carry thousands of on-demand streaming titles and hundreds of free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, and most don’t even require viewers to create an account in order to start watching. Pluto TV and Tubi are some of the biggest free streaming services on the market, but one has captured decidedly more market share than the other, and The Streamable’s experts will dig down to explore why that might be and show viewers what sets the streamers apart from each other.

Key Details:

• New data from Omdia and PlumResearch shows that 43% of all viewing on Pluto TV is attributable to its movie channels
• Tubi has grown to 1.7% of total TV viewing time, more than double Pluto’s market share.
• Tubi emphasizes the on-demand content that its audience prefers, whereas Pluto tries to steer people further toward live channels.

First, the good news for Pluto TV. New data compiled by Omdia and PlumResearch shows that Pluto TV will account for 15% of the market share in the United States among FAST operators by 2028. It also shows which content genre people are watching most on the service; movies account for 43% of FAST viewing on Pluto TV, the only segment besides Classic TV to account for more than 10% of all FAST channel watching on the streamer.

The data also found that in the United States, 60% of viewers watch at least one platform like Pluto TV which offers FAST channels. That surpasses the 55% of respondents who said they accessed a pay-TV service like cable, satellite, or live TV streaming every month.

“[Pluto’s] pioneering introduction of free-ad supported television (FAST) heralded a new era fundamentally altering the media industry’s landscape forever,” said Omdia senior director Maria Rua Aguete.

Why is Tubi So Far Ahead of Pluto TV?

As good as the future looks for Pluto TV, the present looks even better for one of its biggest competitors. Fox’s free streaming platform Tubi saw its viewing hours rise 36% in the first quarter of 2024 alone, and it has steadily increased its market share of total TV viewing in the U.S. since debuting on Nielsen’s monthly “The Gauge” chart which measures TV watching from various sources.

In April 2024, Tubi captured 1.7% of total TV viewing in the U.S. That’s a highly impressive number, surpassing big-name subscription streamers like Peacock, Max and Paramount+. It’s also far ahead of Pluto, which accounted for 0.8% of all TV time domestically during the month.

The bigger problem for Pluto isn’t so much that it’s far behind Tubi at the moment, it’s that its share of viewing time has essentially plateaued. When Tubi first debuted on “The Gauge” in March 2023, it registered 1% of the market share. At that time, Pluto had 0.7% of total TV viewing and has remained more or less at the same level while Tubi sees its percentage steadily climbing.

There could be many reasons for Tubi’s increasing popularity among customers as compared to Pluto’s, but Omdia/PlumResearch’s data potentially reveals a big one. Tubi emphasizes the content its customers want the most; Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch revealed earlier this month that 90% of viewing time on Tubi is spent with on-demand content as opposed to live streaming channels. When a viewer first clicks onto Tubi, the first thing they’re confronted with is a carousel of on-demand titles, followed by a content row of recommended on-demand shows and movies. Tubi knows what its audience is most likely there to see, and it ensures that content is front-and-center when people arrive.

Tubi’s interface does a good job of steering viewers toward the content type they’re most likely to watch.

The Pluto interface, on the other hand, is less successful at putting its most popular genre among customers in front of their eyes when they first arrive on the streamer. Pluto’s default homepage calls up a live channel guide similar to that found on pay-TV services, first showing viewers its own proprietary channels like Pluto Celebrity and Pluto Sci-Fi under the “Last Watched” slot. Viewers have to scroll down to find the movie channels portion of the guide.

Pluto’s live guide shoves its movies section down its scrolling list, despite that genre being the most popular on the service.

There’s a strong likelihood that Pluto could boost its overall market share of TV viewing by giving audiences more of what they want. There’s clearly a robust selection of movies available on Pluto, as well as considerable demand for them, and the streamer must do a better job of putting those movies in front of the eyes of audiences who are most likely on its platform to find them.

Pluto TV is an excellent free streaming platform, with thousands of hours worth of content available and the ability to enjoy live and on-demand content. Its overall library isn’t that different from Tubi’s, but the data shows that the methods with which consumers engage with content on the two services are highly distinct. Pluto has to do a better job of showing its most in-demand content to audiences more quickly, however, if it wants to challenge Tubi’s market share of viewership.