Blue Ant brings Tubi TV OTT network to Canada

Blue Ant Media has struck a deal to represent Tubi TV in the Canadian market. The free, ad-supported over-the-top platform for connected TV and mobile joins Blue Ant’s growing portfolio of cross-channel advertising opportunities.

Tubi TV was launched in April 2014 by AdRise, a U.S. media and technology firm that designs distribution platforms for content producers looking to reach audiences via connected devices.

Similar to Hulu, Tubi streams free content interspersed with commercials, and can be viewed on the web or on Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, Amazon, Chromecast, iOS or Android.

“You look at a Netflix, Crave or Shomi, they’re all great offerings but they’re subscriber-based and not open to advertisers,” said Blue Ant EVP of Canadian networks Jamie Schouela. “What we’re really excited about with Tubi is it gives advertisers what they’ve been looking for, a way to get their products and messages in front of the connected TV audience.”

In addition to selling ads on behalf of Tubi TV, Schouela said Blue Ant would make some of its own content available to online viewers on the platform.

A relative newcomer to the hot OTT market, Tubi has so far focused on building scale to attract viewers. It’s available globally and claims to have secured rights to 40,000 video-on-demand titles.

But, like Netflix early on, a lot of the films and TV shows Tubi hosts aren’t blockbusters. Surfing through its library serves up mostly niche content — vintage classics like The Hunt for Red October and the Transformers TV show, to British and Australian originals of shows like Wilfred and Whose Line is it Anyway? There are a lot of Korean titles, kid’s cartoons, horror B-movies, Christian films and conspiracy documentaries.

Schouela said the platform has a lot of room to grow. “It’s early days,” he said. “They’re bringing on new stuff and new partners constantly, and we’re going to help them with that now as well. So it’s very much a growing opportunity.”

In March this year, Tubi acquired the rights to 50 classic films from Paramount. It also secured deals with Starz, VH1 and Hasbro.

According to AdRise, Tubi TV generates around 50 million monthly impressions globally. (They have not disclosed unique visitors.) In Canada, Schouela only said Tubi’s monthly impressions are “in the millions” and growing quickly.