Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch reportedly turned down multiple offers over $2 billion to buy Tubi as streamer reports record users and ad revenue
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Fox has reportedly turned down offers of over $2 billion for Tubi, the free ad-supported streaming service the media conglomerate bought in 2020.
Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox and son of News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch, reportedly rejected multiple unsolicited offers to keep the streaming service as it continues to grow, according to Bloomberg.
Fox bought the streamer for $440 million in 2020, and Tubi has reported consistent increases in users and revenue in the years since. Murdoch said in an earnings call earlier this week that Tubi’s ad revenue was up 25% last quarter to over $200 million, and total viewing time was up about 41% compared to last year.
The streamer has also grown to 61 million monthly users, according to Bloomberg, compared to 51 million a year ago.
An Insider report on various free ad-supported streaming services from last year valued Tubi at $2.8 billion, based on revenue, user data, and independent analysis.
Tubi’s library early on was largely built on licensed programming, but Fox’s ownership has provided more funding to create original content catered to viewer demographics, CEO and founder Farhad Massoudi told Insider in December 2021.
“We’ve been collecting data for a decade on viewership of titles and audience segmentation,” Massoudi told Insider at the time. “And once we figure out what the user is interested in, then we can serve them hundreds of hours of content that’s similar.”
Tubi’s library currently contains over 48,000 movies and TV shows, as well as partnerships with hundreds of local news and sports channels, according to a Fox summary from December 2022.
Some research on free ad-supported TV and video on-demand services suggests that revenue of the services could double to about $30 billion, according to Bloomberg.
A representative for Tubi declined to comment on the reported offers.