Almost a decade after he co-founded Tubi, and despite selling to Fox for $440 million, Farhad Massoudi is happy not to have a smash hit.
While subscription video services has boomed, many fuelling their growth with the pursuit of tent-pole productions, Massoudi is happy with niche, long-tail content.
In this video interview looking back with Beet.TV, Massoudi explains Tubi’s unique approach.
Convincing the industry
“The reality is that there are few original shows every year that are launched that garner so much attention, the water cooler moment that consumers are willing to pay to watch,” says Massoudi.
“Aside from the top few titles that drive subscribers, the consumption is getting more and more fragmented…
“Consumers are watching more and more long-tail content, and that has to be free at scale and personalized for consumers.”
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Unique approach
Massoudi explains that Tubi went after the long tail of content rather than trying to win Oscars.
That doesn’t mean Tubi isn’t producing its own content. “We’ve produced over a hundred originals in the past 18 months, something most people don’t know,” he says.
But, for Massoudi, big success comes in small slices.
“It’s micro-targeting these niche categories of content and their fandoms,” he saysl
“We did it our way and, you know, in a way, I did it my way.”
Learning from experience
For Massoudi, Tubi has always zigged while others zagged.
“We were a challenger brand,” he remembers. “We were doing things that still to this date, a lot of people scratched their head and they don’t quite see it our way.”
Now Tubi itself has learned some new perspectives.
Three years ago, Tubi was sold, and Massoudi shares that it was incredibly educational to work with a bigger organization that was naturally culturally different. “Learning how to evolve and grow the business within a bigger company,” he says, was a valuable experience.
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We spoke with them at the LUMA Partners DMS conference where they were a speaker. For more Beet.TV coverage of the event, please visit this page.
