If the multi-million-dollar commitment for Super Bowl ad time and planned press leaks about demurred-upon sales offers haven't been enough to convince you over the past few days, take Fox's latest "The Stream 2023 Audience Insights" report as further evidence that the entertainment company is high on Tubi.
The report (downloadable here) basically serves as a (rather effective) position paper: connected TV streamers reached 240 million in the U.S. last year (up 7%); more folks than ever are thinking about cutting the cord (48%); and nearly one in three streaming consumers (31%) is looking to reduce subscription spending and is turning to free ad-supported entertainment.
Perhaps most notable is Fox's sizing up of the total connected-TV ad market, which it said grew by 33% last year to $18.9 billion. That's still a fraction of the $68.4 billion drawn by linear TV last year. Linear kept growing in ad revenue (up 4%) despite losing more large chunks of viewership time to connected TV. Overall streaming usage increased by 21%, according to the study.
It seems like every other day lately, we're writing about another company entering the free ad-supported streaming business -- largely with the same content as everyone else.
It's easy to understand why this is occurring, given the growth projections.
Also notable: Fox parses the definition of free ad-supported streaming channels (FAST) and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD), classifying the former as streaming channels that have the scheduled aesthetic of linear cable channels.
That FAST business, the report said, generated just $2 billion in the U.S. last year, but is expected to double in size by next year. So the whole virtual live linear channels phenomenon only generates a tiny fraction of overall ad revenue in the TV business.
Across what are now 22 FAST providers, there are 1,400 channels serving 190 million users, Fox said.
