Ponder This: There IS Another Streaming Service That’s Catching On

Recently I went on a scavenger hunt to track down exactly where a movie that a few folks I sort of know had produced and acted in was finally going to be able to seen.  It had been produced two summers ago and was supposedly in negotiations with every “major” platform and had been offered for theatrical exhibition as well.  But like thousands of other movies that get made but aren’t deemed as enough of a value proposition for the likes of an AMC Cinemas, Amazon Prime or Netflix to acquire, the movie sat in limbo until a couple of months ago, when after a “star-studded” premiere at a local theatre to celebrate the Florida-centric cast and crew that made it, it finally turned up not in theatres, not on Amazon Prime or Netflix, but on Tubi.

The movie I’m referencing is called PONDER, self-described by IMDB with this plot: A beautiful and successful socialite finds herself an unwitting target in a horrific plot to gain her trust and take her for everything.  Dozens of other independent films have been hatched on similar, even meatier storylines.  You probably haven’t heard or seen much from the cast or crew; save for a couple of co-stars, there’s little significant professional experience.  And it didn’t make the Rotten Tomatoes’ list of the Top 100 titles available on Tubi, or at least the Top 80 that scored above 19 per cent that RT broke out on the site.

Yet I watched it, and apparently enough other people did to make it reportedly the second most-popular movie on the service it dropped.  It’s self-reported, so there’s reason to be dubious, and of course it’s relative.  But just about every streaming service gets to tout its own proprietary data unchallenged and since there’s still no true title-specific all-inclusive timely third party measurement to confirm or deny it, I suppose you have to take them at some degree of face value.

But there are a couple of barometers that do measure the overall popularity of a service and thanks to a slew of New York Times articles there’s now much more awareness of exactly how well Tubi has been doing.  The most recent of them, authored by John Koblin last week, touted some truly surprising data points:

Tubi has exploded in popularity over the last 18 months, establishing itself as one of the most popular streaming outfits in the United States. It now consistently outranks Peacock, Max, Paramount+ and Apple TV+ in total viewing time, according to Nielsen — and is drawing even with Disney+. Only YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are still ahead.

“We’re like the little engine, and it’s just getting better and better,” Anjali Sud, Tubi’s chief executive, said. Its sudden rise has come as something of a shock to many competitors, as well as investors.

But to regular readers of the TIMES, this was almost an expected result, since there had been previous deep dives into some of their secrets.  Roughly 13 months ago, Koblin’s colleague Nicolas Rapold revealed this:

Over the past few years, Tubi has quietly amassed a thriving collection of Black-led independent movies. This might come as news to anyone caught in an endless scroll of Netflix offerings, but not to Tubi’s loyal and growing following. These are movies that get right to the heart of the matter, like their titles: “Watch Your Back,” “Murder City” and “Twisted House Sitter.” In a way, they’re the latest successors to basic cable thrillers, straight-to-video, Lifetime movies, and low-budget B-cinema. But they have a loose energy and generous sense of drama all their own.

And this past February, yet another TIMES scribe, Niela Orr, wrote this homage:

Tubi’s library includes plenty of conventional Hollywood productions, but the company may be best known for its selection of Z-movies: films characterized by outrageously low-budget aesthetics, short run times, horrible acting and worse special effects. The archetypal “Tubi movie” is like a Sweded tape without the charm or whimsy. The style recalls a host of beloved filmmaking traditions: slasher films, midnight movies, Lifetime dramas, stilted 1970s erotica, poorly dubbed martial-arts flicks, Nigeria’s “Nollywood” thrillers, Tyler Perry’s videotaped stage plays, insipid direct-to-video filler.

PONDER actually fits nicely into both buckets.  And there is an underserviced audience sector that it and a lot of other titles do appeal to, as Koblin explained:

Tubi’s library contains tens of thousands of older shows and movies, many that seem to have been collected from the bargain bin. Some popular programs on the service include the 1970s procedural “Columbo,” and an early 2000s UPN sitcom, “Everybody Hates Chris.”    If you look through the RT Top 80, you’ll also note a lot of familiar titles with prior exposure on Hulu, and given the corporate roots of it and Tubi, that’s perhaps more than a coincidence.  A large percentage of their better-reviewed content come from the FX/Hulu combination, effectively making Tubi the equivalent of what Freevee is to Amazon Prime.  Fully ad-supported, with zero subscription fees.  Which for a substantial part of the video universe is more of a necessity than a luxury.  Again per Koblin:

Rich Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Partners, said that consumers have become increasingly tolerant of commercials on streaming, and Tubi’s popularity boils down to one thing: “People love free.”

And the kind of people that disproportionately like not only free, but variety and representation, are making up a significant amount of its growing audience.  Koblin again provides some topline data points:

Tubi has…established a particularly strong following among Black viewers. In June, 46 percent of Tubi’s audience was Black, far more than its competitors, according to Nielsen. It is the only major streaming service that has a greater share of Black viewers than white viewers. (The average share of Black viewers for all streaming services in the United States is 20 percent.).  The Tubi audience also skews older. A little more than half its audience is over the age of 50, according to Nielsen. The audience of paid streaming services is generally younger than that. (Tubi executives said that adults under the age of 50 is one of its fastest-growing groups).

And although the ANKLER’s overly niggly ENTERTAINMENT STRATEGY GUY recently took some issue with some of those facts (I question how someone so supposedly detail-oriented could somehow equate a 33 per cent non-white audience for Tubi over time with a 42 per cent figure he cites for America overall; a nine percentage point differential off a large base has always been to me far too large to dismiss), he did provide a couple of telling charts that shows a doubling of Tubi’s subscriber base between 2021-2023, which puts it on a par with Paramount’s far more aggressive Pluto TV, and +240% growth in annual hours viewed.  Which indeed corroborates the connected-screen-exclusive Nielsen data which likely undercuts a service with the demography and disposability that Tubi has.

I happened to drive by my neighborhood Shakey’s the other day around noon, where a new storefront sign ballyhooing its BUNCH OF LUNCH was being put up.  For under $14, you can take full advantage of what its website describe thusly:

Short on time and long on appetite? Shakey’s Bunch of Lunch is the best lunch deal in town. Experience all-you-can-eat bliss as we serve up an unlimited variety of hot and fresh pizza, golden fried chicken, crispy Mojo Potatoes, pastas, salads, and sides – all for one ridiculously low price.

It’s not something my diet or stomach can handle.  But for an awful lot of other people, particularly those on a budget or with faster metabolisms, it’s ideal.  And based on the demographics of those I saw eagerly going in and out, they seem to align with those that are increasingly chowing down on Tubi.

For all the sturm and drang and difficulties that more purpotedly “artsy” and “healthy” choices, both among streaming services and restaurants, are having, I would offer that maybe there’s lessons to be learned from both of these success stories.   Serve the masses what they want, your perception of quality be damned.

Now that’s something truly worth a PONDER or two.

Until next time…