For anybody feeling the urge to cancel the rest of the day's plans and go into binge mode with Johnny Depp's '80s TV drama 21 Jump Street entirely for free, there's only one place to go for it: Tubi. The ad-supported streaming service has made big strides with audiences ever since it went public back in 2014, and its co-founder and CEO Farhad Massoudi reached new levels of success in April 2020 when Tubi was acquired by Fox Corporation for a hefty sum. And the latest viewership numbers are a good indicator that Fox's investment was very well played.
Most recently, Tubi's 2021 Q1 earnings call revealed (via The Streamable) that the streaming service's vast library was viewed for 220 million hours, and that's just in September alone. Referring to that total as the latest measurement for the service's growing popularity, it was also stated that in the months since Tubi was bought up by Fox, its total view time has increased approximately 100% year over year. That's pretty awesome, and it doesn't look like Tubi is in danger of dipping backwards, either. Especially if Halloween-lovers flocked to the service's horror movie library.
While Tubi's spokesperson didn't offer up any up-to-date subscriber counts, it was only in September when the company announced the record for monthly users had been broken in August, with 33 million people popping on to stream the vast assortment of TV shows, movies, documentaries and more. That total marked a 65% year-to-year increase, and while it's somewhat impossible to confirm, it's likely that the boost was influenced by people staying home more than ever due to pandemic-based quarantines.
On top of that, the 33-million-users total was also a pretty huge jump from where the numbers were in February 2020, before COVID truly took over the world. At that time, Tubi announced its monthly viewership was topping off around 25 million active users, so it amassed an impressive 8 million more users in just six months. It's hard to tell whether or not that kind of maximum growth potential will continue into 2021, or if that total will move toward plateauing in the near future.
For another comparison, Tubi's February report noted that those 25 million users at the time were responsible for streaming around 163 hours of programming. So beyond the 8 million user increase, Tubi can also boast an time-viewed increase of 37 million hours in that six month span. Just for a comparison, Amazon subscribers viewed 14.85 million hours of The Boys during its first week of release, with Netflix users streaming 35 million hours of Cobra Kai during that same week-long stretch, with around 50 million users tuning in to the action revival series during its first 28 days on the service.
So when looking at the big picture, Tubi obviously has a ways to go before it catches up with the biggest streaming service out there, but any and every step in that direction is more great news for the company. Execs have started diversifying the content more, recently launching Tubi en Español and Tubi Kids to sway Spanish-language viewers and younger streamers. The former has led to huge user increases in Mexico in particular.
Are you part of that growing Tubi fanbase, readers? Or maybe now will you become a fan, knowing that the service likely won't be going away anytime soon? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned for more Tubi news and celebratory announcements. While waiting, head to our Fall TV 2020 premiere schedule to see what new and returning shows are on the way.
