Episodes of unscripted juggernaut The Masked Singer will stream on Tubi, Fox Corp.’s free, ad-supported service, the companies have announced.
Tubi, whose acquisition by Fox closed Monday, will add the first two seasons of the competition series to its platform starting Thursday night. As to current-season episodes, the plan is to put them on Tubi at least a week after their broadcasts on Fox. The show is already streaming on Hulu the day after linear and also VOD via pay-TV providers.
“Tubi viewers can revisit their favorite performances or discover for the first time the stars behind the mask,” said Adam Lewinson, Tubi’s Chief Content Officer. “This marks the first of many new initiatives we’ll pursue with Fox.”
After initially staying neutral during the streaming wars, Fox opted to pay $440 million in cash for Tubi, a bet on the continued growth of streaming, particularly ad-supported video on demand [AVOD]. Tubi has reported 25 million active users, and reported having 163 million hours of viewing in December of its 20,000 movie and TV titles.
AVOD offers traditional TV programmers a chance to reach cord-cutters or cord-nevers, populations that have dragged down overall ratings and threatened advertising revenue in recent years. Growth in the sector spurred Viacom’s purchase of Pluto TV as well as Comcast’s acquisition of Xumo and plan to make a free, ad-supported tier a key element of Peacock, NBCUniversal’s nascent streaming effort.
“We are thrilled to make The Masked Singer available to an even wider audience through Tubi,” said Rob Wade, President of Alternative Entertainment and Specials, of FOX Entertainment. “The Masked Singer is an important piece of our growing stable of owned-IP; and this deal is a prime example of our strategy to identify meaningful opportunities for, and build the value of, our content.”
The Masked Singer is TV’s top draw, averaging 15 million viewers across platforms. It is produced by Fox Alternative Entertainment, hosted by Nick Cannon and features panelists Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger, Ken Jeong, and Robin Thicke.
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