Tubi, Fox’s free ad-supported streaming TV service (FAST), boasts a content library of more than 250,000 movies and TV episodes and 200 live TV channels, which makes finding something to watch a tricky proposition. Today, however, Tubi’s 81 million active users are getting a new way to help them find something to watch in the form of Scenes, a feature that serves up short clips of your favorite shows and movies on your mobile device.
Scenes, which can now be found in the Tubi app’s navigation bar on iOS and Android devices, serves up access to “tens of thousands” of clips of a user’s favorite shows and movies that they can scroll à la TikTok or Reels, all based on the content that they like and add to their “My List” inventory.
Tubi says in a press release that Scenes leverages Tubi’s machine learning engine and AI models to deliver a “personalization experience … to surface fandoms and rabbit holes to discover and explore.” It’s designed to address the needs of users who are on the go.
As with any algorithm, as users continue to save to their My List, recommendations get increasingly personalized to their tastes. Once saved to a user’s My List, Scenes can be accessed to watch from any of the devices that Tubi is available on, such as streaming devices from Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV, as well as Google Chromecast, Android TV, TiVo, and Google TV.
“Currently, users either get a shrunk-down version of their TV streaming app on their phones or are limited to quick vertical videos on social platforms. We believe there’s a better way to meet the needs of mobile users on the go, allowing them to watch both short-form video and long-form within the same app,” said Mike Bidgoli, chief product and technology officer at Tubi. “By creating features that leverage the strengths of each device, we can create an effortlessly entertaining experience for viewers looking for quick bursts of entertainment on the go that transition seamlessly to their living rooms.”
Tubi is one of the best advertising video on demand (AVOD)/FAST services in the world, serving a combination of on-demand titles and live TV for free — that is, without a monthly subscription. The compromise is, unlike the big boys of the streaming service world, you have to watch some relatively nonintrusive ads.
