SAN JUAN, PR — After a couple of years of subscription video-on-demand boom (SVOD), a new model is emerging to capitalize on rumored “subscription fatigue”.
Advertiser-supported VOD (AVOD) is bringing ad support back on the agenda, even as the rise of pay-for video services brought many to conclude that the era of ad-funding was over.
Amongst the AVOD contenders are Peacock, Xumo, Pluto TV and Tubi.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Tubi chief revenue officer Mark Rotblat says AVoD has an attractive complementary place alongside SVoD.
“There’s a lot of room,” he says. “Most of our viewers are Netflix subscribers, I think somewhere around 60%. They typically carry maybe another subscription that they bounce around.
“Maybe they are subscribing to HBO, and then Game of Thrones is over and they move on and then, ‘Oh, we’re going to Showtime’. And they binge something else. And we are the comfort blanket for everything else.”
Tubi carries a library of over 20,000 titles. Amongst recently-disclosed December stats:
- 25 million monthly active users (up from 20 million in June).
- 163 million hours viewed in the month (160% year-on-year).
Whilst the big SVoD services are currently spending big money on titles to entice subscribers, Rotblat says Tubi has a different agenda.
“We think we’re playing a different game,” he says. “We’re not throwing out money, 500 million for Friends. We are there finding the things that are going to keep people engaged.
“We think that’s the most important metric, is total viewing time. It’s about having them find something new, something they love every time they come to the service.”
So, what of Tubi’s ad model? Running just four to six minutes of ads per hour, Tubi may carry more ads than SVoD services, but it compares incredibly well, from a viewer perspective, against traditional TV.
Still, despite being happy with his current line-up, Rotblat thinks AVoD services will likely acquire SVoD’s shows at some point in the future.
“I think you’re going to see some things from some of these services that start to end up on services like Tubi,” he reckons. “There’s libraries that will be under-monetized by staying within the walls of the services that they were initially produced for.”
The panel was led by Beet.TV editorial and strategy director Jon Watts.
This video was produced at the Beet Retreat San Juan 2020 sponsored by 605, DISH Media, NBCU, Roundel & Tubi. For more videos from the series, please visit this landing page.