New research from Tubi’s audience report The Stream shows not only an increase in total streaming time, but a trend toward finding less expensive ways to watch content after cutting the cord.
70% of those who participated in the survey report watching more TV now than in March 2020, the start of the pandemic. The upward trend of time spent watching TV was reflected in Tubi’s own data, with time spent streaming on the free service up 54% year over year to 798 million hours in Q1 2021.
“Movies and TV shows served as a much-needed escape and form of entertainment over this past year,” said Natalie Bastian, Vice President, Marketing at Tubi. “As many viewers turned to streaming, Tubi experienced exponential growth over the last year with no signs of slowing down—we saw 2.5 billion hours streamed in 2020 alone and we’re continuing to shatter records in 2021.”
49% of those who were surveyed said they’ve been looking for ways to save money on streaming in 2021. Nearly a third (32%) of people in the study plan on canceling a subscription streaming service (SVOD) they currently use, with one in three (33%) citing cost as their reason to cancel a subscription.
Half of those who responded said they’ve started using free streaming services in the past year. 29% of that group listed cutting costs as their motivation and 39% said they subscribed to free services to supplement their subscription services.
“Tubi’s median viewer age is 20 years younger than that of linear TV and 39% of our audience identify as multicultural,” noted Bastian. “We’re speaking directly to this demographic in the coming year with a larger library that will soon feature original content, sports programming and an expanded news offering, particularly as viewers look to scale back their subscription costs without sacrificing quality content at their fingertips.”