Anjali Sud: Tubi is the ‘free Netflix’ of streaming world

Tubi’s rapid growth has seen it become a “free Netflix” in the streaming space, according to chief exec Anjali Sud, who said the company will be “leveraging” creator-led content to rapidly expand its offering for younger audiences. 

The former Vimeo boss, who took over just under two years ago at the Fox-owned company, said the AVoD platform’s expansion in North America – where it has 275,000 titles in its libraries – and internationally in Mexico, the UK and Australia is allowing it to muscle in on the bigger players in the streaming space.  

“We’ve tried to be bold, and all we care about is engagement. The differentiators for us are in two key areas: one, having the breadth of storytelling personalised to you. We spend a lot of time getting really good at helping you discover content,” Sud told delegates during her keynote conversation at the Banff World Media Festival yesterday (9 June).  

“The other thing we do, which is unique in FAST, is originals. Tubi has hundreds of originals, and one in four of what our viewers watch is a Tubi original. We’re very focused on exclusive, differentiated programming.  

“You’re going to see us double down there and focus more on Gen Z content for young adult audiences that reflects the culture and talent they’re used to seeing in a digital world. You’re going to see us leverage creators more in our offering. It’s sort of like a free Netflix model: it’s premium, original programming but offered entirely for free.”

She said the platform aims to cater for “groups and communities which are underserved by the traditional Hollywood system” and “culturally resonant programming”. 

“We’re trying to find stories that are at the speed of culture, the speed of Tik Tok, bring those stories to our audiences in Hollywood-quality content,” she added. “We’re trying to take what’s happening in other mediums and social and bring that into Hollywood in a way that speaks to the younger audience. 

“And we’re flexible about what’s ‘going to be good’, We don’t start with the philosophical view of: we know what quality looks like. We’re not the arbiters of quality, our audience is. We listen to what they want and give them more of that.” 

AI potential 

Sud, whose streamer carries shows ranging from animation Breaking Bear to movies such as Sidelined: The QB and Me, also enthused about the prospects of the industry harnessing the positives of “[AI] technology and data” to improve its offering. 

“We’re very good at taking lots of content and data and helping each individual viewer have a personalised experience,” she added. “We invest a lot in machine learning and AI. We obsess about that. 

“The primary place where we’ve seen the most opportunity [with AI] is the user experience of discovery. AI and the next generation of deep learning models are going to enable things that were previously very hard.” 

She noted that most consumers tend to remember what show they watched but not which streaming service they watched it on, because they look and feel the same. 

“It’s the grid, and you scroll through the grid. It’s been very hard to innovate in the user experience. Now, with machine learning, you will start to see home screens look totally different, based on the person. They will be optimised and dynamic,” she added. 

Sud said Tubi would wait to see what’s happening around generative AI usage in the industry but said it could help development of programming in the future. 

“The biggest potential for gen AI is to accelerate creativity by making it easier, faster and cheaper to create content. Ultimately, if it’s utilised well that’s the potential, because it’s extremely hard to make great content, it takes a lot of money and time.”