Tubi inked a deal with Cox Communications, giving customers of the cable operator’s Contour service access to more than 12,000 movies and TV shows for no additional charge.
Tubi’s partnership with Cox Contour marks its second pay-TV deal after launching on Comcast Xfinity X1 last fall. Apart from YouTube, Tubi is the only ad-supported video-on-demand streaming service distributed as a standalone app on pay-TV operators’ devices.
At the end of 2018, Cox had about 4 million pay-TV subscribers, according to Leichtman Research Group. Contour is Cox’s premium video service that also features apps for Netflix, YouTube, YouTube Kids, iHeartRadio and NPR One, as well as a sports app that overlays live stats and scores.
Tubi claims its library — stocked mostly with older titles — includes around 40,000 hours of content, which it claims is twice that of Netflix. Tubi has said it expects to spend more than $100 million in content licensing deals in 2019 to augment its content library.
Movies on Tubi include “Up In the Air” starring George Clooney and Anna Kendrick and “Rango” starring Johnny Depp and Isla Fisher, as well as television series such as “Xena: Warrior Princess,” “The A-Team,” “Major Dad,” “Dog the Bounty Hunter” and “Alf.”
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“Our partnership with Cox expands upon our mission to make entertainment accessible to everyone,” Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi said in a statement. “With the addition of Cox Contour, Tubi will continue to have the widest distribution of any ad-supported streaming service.”
Currently, Tubi’s service is available only in the U.S. and Canada. The AVOD service also is available on a range of device platforms including Amazon’s Fire TV, Roku, iOS and Android, Chromecast, Samsung televisions, and Xbox and PlayStation consoles. The company doesn’t disclose how many people use the service, but claims total viewing time last year increased by 4.3 times over 2017.
Tubi recently reached a pact with NBCUniversal to add close to 400 movies and TV show episodes to its service. In addition, starting Monday (April 1), the service will carry the first seasons of reality-dating shows “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” as well as “The Bachelorette: Trista & Ryan’s Wedding” and to season 5 of “Bachelor in Paradise,” under a deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution.