How might Tubi look different in Australia vs the US?
Could we see a Tubi revamp amid sweeping TV changes in Australia this year?
I remarked to an ABW reader yesterday that the TV landscape in Australia is going to look very different at the end of the year than it does now. The tectonic plates that TV here is built on are all shifting. The big changes include:
Warner Bros Discovery launches Max, which strips the Foxtel-owned streamer BINGE of most of its big, buzzy content. Does BINGE see out the end of the year? Not an unreasonable question.
Foxtel itself has been sold to European sports service DAZN. (So, if Foxtel pivots even more towards sports, shuttering the general entertainment BINGE isn’t that huge a deal in the greater scheme of things). That deal closes mid-year.
Disney is launching ESPN on Disney+ this month and isn’t shy about an interest in chasing local sports rights. This will see ESPN leaving Foxtel (where it has been a content staple since Foxtel launched in 1995).
If you want to keep the tally running, over a 12 month period, Foxtel has lost the WBD content (inclusive of HBO), BBC, and ESPN.
Newsmax is expected to launch in Australia in the coming months, taking on established conservative news / culture war champion Sky News Australia (which will itself undergo a rebrand).
New ownership of Paramount Global will see major changes with the Paramount+ platform, Pluto TV (currently built into the tenplay app), and broadcaster Channel 10.
NRL rights negotiations (for the 2028 season onwards)
What else have I missed? It’s a big year for change. And with all of those changes, the rest of the market will reshape around them.
A case in point is NewsCorp Australia. With the sale of Foxtel to DAZN, so to goes NewsCorp Australia’s 50% holdings in a TV company. So, it wasn’t a huge surprise to read that the Murdoch family-controlled NewsCorp Australia has announced it will now take over the sale of ads on the Murdoch family-controlled Fox Corporation owned Tubi (in the Australian market).
This signals that Fox Corporation may now actually invest some money and resources into the local version of the streamer (which is, politely… lacking). It is very funny listening to an interview with News Corp’s executive chairman Michael Miller telling
editor that there is premium content on the local Tubi service. Clearly Miller’s definition of premium is quite unique.
I’m a semi-regular Tubi viewer of the Australian service and there are some rare instances of high quality titles in there, but only in the same sense that if you climbed through a DVD discount bin (remember those?), you’ll occasionally come across good, old titles like, say The Third Man (which I reference because it is a great film that is also on Tubi). Australian Tubi also has old episodes of The Dick Cavett Show, Troma movies, Fridays (the early 80s SNL rip-off that included Larry David and Michael Richards among its cast), Mr Bean, Peter Gunn, and This Old House episodes.
Some good stuff, but not what anyone would suggest is a premium content offer.
This is Tubi Australia (which looks a lot like how Tubi used to look before Fox bought it):
Compare that experience to the US version, which genuinely has a number of good, premium titles. It’s packed with library titles that include movies starring actors you have heard of before. Think more Reese Witherspoon and Tom Cruise. And less, Thomas Jane.
The US Tubi also has a number of FAST channels streaming on the platform.
This is the US Tubi:
The US and Australian Tubi are very different experiences.
I would find it unlikely that there would be a large investment into the Australian Tubi library (though, I’ll happily be proven wrong on that). But with the service now more deeply entwined with NewsCorp Australia, which has a focus on newspapers and Sky News Australia, my assumption is that we may start seeing some integration there. Sky News linear streaming on the local Tubi (possibly integrating some of the news channels currently being packaged on the little-discussed FLASH subscription news channel service).
News Desk
Netflix has announced a new adaptation of the Stephen King novel Cujo. No writer, director, or cast members are yet attached (I cannot wait for the trade speculation on who will play the titular character). Read: Variety
Gabriel Luna has joined the cast of Prime Video’s The Terminal List. And just to remind you, that’s the Navy SEAL show from 2022 starring Chris Pratt. Read: Variety
In important wang news, it has been confirmed that Jason Isaacs wore a prosthetic in this week’s episode of The White Lotus. Read: TV Insider
The White Lotus wangs are important enough, it seems, to warrant a story in The Guardian asking “Hey, what’s with all the wangs?”. I paraphrase.
The wife of Ghost Adventures star Aaron Goodwin has been arrested after trying to hire a hitman to kill Goodwin. This begs questions to be asked, like: “What is Ghost Adventures?”. Read: TMZ
Trailer Park
Hacks returns for season 4 on April 10.
The Dad Quest debuts on Netflix April 9.
"Gallo," a TV producer, faces an unexpected twist in his life when he discovers that he is not Benito's biological father.
Wylde Park debuts on Nickelodeon mid-year.
Inspired by co-creators and executive producers Paul Watling and Kyle Marshall's family life, the 26-episode comedy series follows half siblings Lily and Jack as they learn to navigate new family dynamics under one roof for the first time.
That’s the newsletter for today.
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