Here’s exactly how Tubi acquires content, what it’s prioritizing heading into 2026, and—critically—how content owners can position their projects to land deals.

Tubi’s Scale in 2026: Why This Platform Matters More Than You Think

Let’s start with a number that stops most people: 2.2% of all US TV viewing minutes. That’s Tubi’s all-time high in Nielsen’s May 2025 Gauge measurement—and it puts the platform ahead of most cable networks and within striking distance of the major streamers. Not bad for a service that charges viewers exactly zero dollars.

But the audience composition is what makes Tubi uniquely valuable to content owners right now. Over 34% of viewers are between 18 and 34. More than half identify as Gen Z or Millennials. Nearly half are multicultural. And 77% report not having cable — meaning Tubi is reaching audiences that linear TV can’t touch, in a demographic that advertisers are fighting to access.

For Fox Corporation’s investors, the story is profitability. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch confirmed Tubi hit breakeven “earlier than expected” in fiscal Q1 2025, with 27% revenue growth for the quarter driven by an 18% increase in total view time. The majority of Fortune 100 brands are now advertising on Tubi. Ad revenue exceeded $1 billion annually heading into 2025. This is no longer a long-term bet—it’s a performing asset.

All of this matters for content owners because platform health drives acquisition appetite. A Tubi that’s profitable and growing its ad revenue has budget to license more content, greenlight more originals, and expand into new territories. That window is open right now—and the producers who understand Tubi’s acquisition logic are moving first.

Tubi’s 3 Content Acquisition Pillars in 2026

Pillar 1: Studio Library Licensing

The foundation of Tubi’s 300,000-title library comes from licensing deals with major studios and networks. Current active partners include Warner Bros., Paramount, Lionsgate, AMC Networks, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, New Regency, and Fox Entertainment. Fox Corporation’s 2021 acquisition of MarVista Entertainment also deepened Tubi’s library bench considerably.

These aren’t passive, set-and-forget agreements. Tubi’s UK library doubled in its first year—from 20,000 titles at the July 2024 launch to over 40,000—through an aggressive push to execute new territory-specific deals with the same studio partners. The international expansion playbook is deliberately replicating what worked in the US.

Pillar 2: Independent and International Distribution

This is where the opportunity sits for most producers reading this. Tubi actively acquires from indie distributors like Vertical Entertainment, Samuel Goldwyn Films, and Cohen Media Group—which signed an exclusive deal placing over 80 arthouse titles on the platform. It’s also deepened international content partnerships; a 2022 deal with South Korean entertainment company CJ ENM brought K-drama, Korean films, and K-pop programming to the platform. South Korean content has since become one of Tubi’s fastest-growing categories.

The Fragmentation Paradox hits hard in this pillar. Tubi’s content team can’t evaluate every title that comes through the door—and most independent producers don’t know which formats, genres, and runtimes Tubi’s buyers are actively prioritizing right now versus six months ago. That intelligence gap is exactly what costs content owners deals they could’ve closed.

Pillar 3: Tubi Originals and Creator Projects

Originals have become the platform’s sharpest competitive tool. Nearly 1 in 4 Tubi viewers are now watching a Tubi Original—remarkable adoption for what’s still a young content investment. The SIDELINED franchise (starring TikTok influencer Noah Beck) brought in nearly 20 million viewers across two films, with the sequel’s median new viewer age of just 21. That’s the demographic Tubi is weaponizing: young, multicultural, and cord-never.

Tim Cutting (VP of Strategic Revenue at Gracenote) breaks down exactly how FAST platform operators like Tubi use metadata, content IDs, and monetization intelligence to drive acquisition and viewer discovery decisions—essential context for anyone pitching content to the platform:

Genre Priorities: What Tubi’s Buyers Are Actually Chasing

Tubi’s content team is data-driven in a way that most SVOD platforms aren’t. Because every title is ad-supported, completion rate directly affects CPM yield—and that means Tubi’s buyers are selecting content based on engagement signals, not just acquisition cost. Here’s where the active demand sits:

Horror is Tubi’s bedrock. The platform holds the largest horror content library in streaming—9,000 titles. Sam Harowitz confirmed the team is “doubling down” on horror acquisitions, and the genre over-indexes consistently in completion rate and return views. If you have genre horror in the pipeline, Tubi should be your first AVOD call.

Young adult romance has emerged as Tubi’s surprise growth engine. The SIDELINED franchise proved that TikTok-native casting and Gen Z storylines translate into platform-level retention. Anjali Sud, CEO of Tubi, confirmed the platform is “resonating with cordless audiences, younger audiences and audiences that dictate culture.” The buyer signal is clear: young adult projects with fresh, multicultural talent and social-media-native appeal are being greenlit aggressively.

Action and thriller remain Tubi’s strongest mid-catalog performers globally—confirmed in both US and UK acquisition priorities. The UK expansion deals specifically called out action, thriller, comedy, and horror as the top-performing genres informing their content build.

Sports and culture content is a newer but fast-growing priority. With Fox’s sports infrastructure behind it, Tubi is pushing into sports rights (CONCACAF Champions Cup, Premier League rights in Mexico and Central America, Super Bowl LIX in February 2025) and commissioning sports-culture originals like Zero Start: The Cam Ward Story and Destination World Cup 2026. This sports-culture lane is wide open for independent documentary producers who can package a project with the right athletic hook.

Korean content keeps growing. South Korean titles from the CJ ENM deal became one of Tubi’s fastest-expanding categories—and the platform’s multicultural, Gen Z audience base is perfectly positioned for additional K-drama and K-film acquisitions. For distributors with Korean or Asian content, Tubi is one of the most commercially aligned AVOD homes in the US market.

Tubi Originals: Stubios, Kickstarter, and the Creator Economy Bet

Tubi’s originals strategy is more interesting—and more unusual—than most analysts give it credit for. It’s not trying to out-Netflix Netflix. It’s building an originals pipeline designed to serve fandoms and lower the cost of audience development. Three initiatives define this approach in 2026:

Stubios: Tubi’s fan-fueled studio puts greenlight decisions in the hands of the audience. Fans vote on which projects get commissioned. It’s counterintuitive—and genuinely disruptive to traditional development logic—but the result is originals with pre-built communities before a single frame is shot. For indie creators, this is a meaningful path to a Tubi commission without needing an existing studio relationship.

Kickstarter partnership: In June 2025, Tubi partnered with Kickstarter to bring over 20 crowdfunded films to the platform with a 3-month exclusivity window. Tubi also invested in the FilmStream Collective Fund—pledging directly to 10 Kickstarter campaigns to help them hit their funding goals. This isn’t just distribution—it’s a financing play. Tubi is backing projects it believes in before they’re completed.

Digital-first creator series: In November 2025, Tubi greenlit its first slate of exclusive creator series from YouTube and social media personalities including Joey Graceffa, KevOnStage, and Dan & Riya. Rich Bloom, EVP Business Development at Tubi, called it “doubling down on exclusive content from digital-first creators.” For production companies with creator relationships, this opens a commissioning lane that didn’t exist 18 months ago.

The common thread across all three? Audience-first acquisition logic. Tubi’s originals aren’t prestige programming—they’re acquisition magnets designed to bring new viewers onto the platform and then capture their engagement with the broader library. That’s a different commissioning conversation than you’d have at HBO or Netflix.

How Tubi Structures Its Licensing Deals

Tubi uses three primary deal structures — and which one applies to your content matters enormously for your revenue model:

Revenue-sharing agreements are the most common model for independent and catalog content. Content owners earn a share of the ad revenue generated when viewers watch their titles. The exact split varies by deal, relationship, and title performance. For independently produced content without significant pre-existing distribution infrastructure, a distribution partner who can negotiate directly with Tubi’s team typically yields better terms than going direct.

Fixed-fee licensing applies primarily to library content from major studios and established distributors. Tubi pays an upfront fee for exclusive or non-exclusive streaming rights for a defined window. This model is less common for smaller content owners but does appear in strategic acquisitions where Tubi wants guaranteed exclusivity.

Performance-based deals tie payment directly to viewership metrics and ad revenue performance. These work in content owners’ favor when titles over-perform—which is why understanding Tubi’s audience demographics and genre demand before you pitch is actually a financial strategy, not just due diligence. A title that aligns with Tubi’s proven engagement patterns (horror, young adult romance, action) will generate materially better performance-based returns than one that doesn’t.

One critical insight: runtime matters for AVOD economics. Features in the 80–100 minute range and episodic content in the 25–45 minute window generate the best completion rates—which directly affect how much ad inventory Tubi can serve and therefore how much revenue the revenue-share generates. Know your runtime before you approach the room.

Global Expansion: UK, Canada, and Tubi’s International Ambitions

Tubi’s international footprint is growing fast—and it creates acquisition opportunities that most content owners outside the US are sleeping on. The UK launch in July 2024 started at 20,000 titles and doubled in under a year through aggressive local licensing. According to Ampere Analysis, Tubi UK saw the fastest catalogue growth in Europe in the period—and the platform is positioned as the biggest collection of free movies and TV series in the UK market.

Ross Appleton, Tubi’s UK General Manager, confirmed the strategy directly: rising streaming costs and market fragmentation are driving UK viewers toward free alternatives. Tubi is capitalizing on exactly the same cord-cutting dynamics that fueled its US growth—and it’s replicating the same acquisition playbook: studio library deals, genre-specific catalog builds, and localized originals development through the Bell Media co-production structure.

The Bell Media partnership (announced October 2025) is the Canadian template: Bell handles Tubi’s Canadian ad sales while co-developing new programming through an existing Fox Entertainment development arrangement. This structure — local ad partner plus content co-development — is likely to be replicated in other international markets. For producers in those territories, getting into Tubi’s international content development pipeline now, before the market becomes crowded, is a significant strategic advantage.

How to Get Your Content on Tubi in 2026

The practical path breaks down into four routes:

Route 1 — Through an aggregator: If you’re an independent producer without a distributor, working through an AVOD-specialized aggregator gives you access to Tubi’s acquisition pipeline. The aggregator handles delivery, metadata requirements, and deal negotiation. Your economics are slightly reduced but the path is faster and more reliable.

Route 2 — Through a distribution partner: Companies like Vertical Entertainment and Samuel Goldwyn Films have established relationships with Tubi’s content team. If your project fits within an existing distributor’s acquisition parameters, their relationship with Tubi will get you faster deal execution and better terms than going unsolicited direct.

Route 3 — Tubi’s emerging creator programs: If you’re a YouTube or digital-native creator with an existing audience, Tubi’s creator programs (through Rich Bloom’s team) are now an active commissioning path. The platform’s Stubios greenlight model also provides an entry point for projects with strong community followings.

Route 4 — Real-time intelligence platforms: The producers closing deals with Tubi fastest in 2026 are the ones who understand Tubi’s current acquisition priorities in real time—not from articles written six months ago. Vitrina maps active content acquisitions and deal flow across 400,000+ projects globally—surfacing which genres Tubi is actively licensing, which distribution partners are brokering deals, and which decision-makers are involved. That’s the Insider Advantage that compresses months of outreach into days.

FAQ: Tubi Content Acquisition 2026

The Strategic Play for Content Owners in 2026

Tubi’s content acquisition strategy isn’t complicated—but it is precise. The platform knows its audience cold: young, multicultural, cord-never, and engaged at a level that’s rewarding advertisers and driving Fox’s earnings. And because every content dollar needs to deliver ad revenue, Tubi’s buyers are selecting with genuine rigor, not just filling catalog space.

The opportunity for producers and distributors is real. But the window is tied to momentum—and Tubi’s acquisition pace is accelerating, not slowing. The content owners getting deals done right now are the ones who understand the platform’s current acquisition priorities in real time, not from last quarter’s trade coverage.

Key Takeaways:

• Tubi is profitable and scaling fast — 100M+ monthly users, $1B+ annual revenue, and 27% revenue growth make this a serious, high-priority platform for any content distribution strategy.
• Three acquisition pillars — studio library licensing, independent/international deals, and Tubi Originals each require a different entry strategy; know which path fits your project.
• Genre alignment is a financial decision — horror, action, thriller, young adult romance, and Korean content over-index in performance-based revenue; misaligned content earns proportionally less.
• International expansion is accelerating — UK (40,000+ titles) and Canada (Bell Media partnership) are active now; other territories will follow the same playbook.
• Real-time intelligence beats relationship networks — knowing what Tubi’s buyers are actively acquiring today, not six months ago, is the difference between pitching into an open window and missing it entirely.