Adam Lewinson, Chief Content Officer at Tubi, spoke to ttvnews about the platform’s recent launch in five new countries in Latin America, where it’s presenting a unique, niche offer that’s free and truly differs from everything else currently available in the market.
This month of August, Tubi, Fox Entertainment’s AVOD service, announced its expansion in Latin America with launches in Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama, adding to its current presence in Mexico, where it arrived in 2020.
“Tubi is one of the dominant free ad-supported streaming services across North America and on the heels of our really tremendous success in Mexico, where we launched in 2020, we decided to expand deeper into LatAm”, said Adam Lewinson, Chief Content Officer at Tubi, who spoke to ttvnews about the platform’s launch and plans in the region.
Over the last year in Mexico, Tubi has seen total viewing time (TVT) grow 60% year-over-year and Total Viewers grow 40% year-over-year. Partnered with TV Azteca, one of the two largest producers of Spanish-language content in the world, Tubi serves as the free streaming home in Mexico to TV Azteca’s popular titles.
And now, the platform is expanding its presence in the region with the goal of creating a localized, unique content offer, that differs from everything that’s currently available in each market.
“The Tubi offering is unique to what anyone across LatAm is seeing. It’s completely free and ad supported. But to go even further, we have a mission to democratize this content,” the executive explained. “There’s so much content that’s locked behind a paywall and is hard to find, so what we do is we put together very large libraries of content, pair them with machine learning and algorithms, so that over time Tubi will understand what viewers in each market wants to watch and serve their needs.”
“We used to live in a world where everyone shared the same culture and I do think that still exists with, for example, sports, but when it comes to entertainment, everything is fractionalized. Everyone is watching different things on personal devices and Tubi really leans into that, whatever it is you want to watch, we are here to super serve the viewer. Whatever genre, local content, Hollywood content dubbed in Spanish, everything is available”, he added.
Tubi’s vast library in the region will be localized in Spanish-language and available on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV as well as Google TV and other Android TV OS devices, in addition to LG TVs, Samsung TVs, Microsoft Store on Windows, VIDAA Smart OS on Hisense TVs, as well as Amazon Fire TV Stick devices and Roku TV and players in select countries. Consumers can also watch Tubi content on the web.
“We are dedicated to localizing every version of Tubi. We are mindful that when a viewer, for example in Costa Rica, opens Tubi, we want it to feel localized. Everything is in Spanish, the content is in Spanish, with heavy emphasis on local content. If you looked at the offer in LatAm compared to the US or Canada or Australia, they are all different,” he explained.
The offer includes popular movies such as The Green Hornet, Hellboy, American Psycho, Gridiron Gang, Snatch, Machete, Hook, The Other Guys, The House Bunny, The Social Network, Obsessed and La Bamba as well as TV series including L.A.’s Finest and Masters of Sex will stream for free on Tubi in all five new territories. Additionally, regionally-produced TV series will soon be available, including Mexico’s Bienvenida Realidad, Atrapada and El Sexo Debil; as well as local versions of popular series such as The Nanny, Bewitched, and Married with Children.
“I hope viewers across this countries embrace Tubi as it’s been embraced elsewhere,” the executive said. “Tubi is a platform that offers a unique opportunity to find content that’s hard to find or that maybe you didn’t know existed. I see success with viewers watching anime, formats dubbed in Spanish and niche content. We will continue to super serve niche audiences and driving engagement,” he concluded.
