News Corp Australia’s sales chief Lou Barrett and Tubi’s international markets boss David Salmon are bullish about the AVOD’s growth plans in Australia, believing it can enjoy similar market penetration levels that it does in North America. The pair sat down with B&T to explain what that addition of Tubi means for advertisers and how confident they are that it can thrive in an increasingly cluttered streaming market.
Meanwhile, Tubi Rabbit mascot caught up with B&T editor Tom Fogden to share a few choice words (see video at the end).
For the ever optimistic Barrett, who leads a 500-strong sales team, Tubi is the final piece of News Corp’s video advertising puzzle, providing advertising on connected TV to compliment its growing suite of news shorts and digital video opportunities.
Barrett, who caught up with B&T ahead of News Corp’s All Screens event last week, is bullish about Tubi’s impact in the Australian market, which is already served by rival BVODs on Channel Seven, Nine Ten, as well as SVODs including Netflix, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, Disney-plus, Apple TV, BINGE, Kayo and the recently launched Max.
“If we just talk about all screens for all Australians, what we’re now taking to market and offering is the most powerful, unified offering in the market,” she said. “It’s one that provides a very simple, very effective opportunity that can reach anyone–like a one-stop shop for video.”
Barrett is buoyed by how much Tubi’s viewing hours have grown since it became its official sales house in March.
She said the growth in viewership is up by 30 per cent in that time, a figure that an independent measurement source has confirmed is accurate.
“In a couple of years time, I would hope that we are a regular choice on every client CTV spend,” Barrett said. “It’s a free offering. It’s quite unique in that respect and it reaches younger audiences. So I would hope that we are just a natural inclusion on any CTV buy.”
Barrett said that News Corp will shortly enter negotiations with media agency partners to explore packages across News Corp and Tubi for the 2026 calendar year.
News Corp was the first major media company to hold an upfront style event this year, which Barrett hinted could be a regular occurrence.
‘We want to be category leaders’
Tubi’s EVP, managing director of International, David Salmon, was also upbeat about the growth potential of Tubi in the Australian market.
He points to the success Tubi has had in the US, where it is watched by more than 90 million viewers (roughly a quarter of the population) and Canada, where it reaches more than a third of adults.
If Tubi could attract similar market penetration to the US it would need to reach around 7.2 million Aussies, which is higher than the current number of SVOD subscribers for market leaders Netflix, which has 6.2 million subscribers, and Amazon Video Prime, which has 4.8 million subscribers.
Salmon accepts that it may take years for Tubi to reach that mark, but has been pleased by the amount of growth delivered this year since News Corp invested millions in a marketing push for the AVOD.
“We’ve definitely found that having them really leaning in with a lot of their marketing channels has been very successful for us,” he said.
“We’ve seen a 30 per cent increase in hours viewed over the past few months, which has really been driven by some of the amazing activations that they’ve been able to deliver across their footprint, as well as the increased investment in a lot of the licensed and original programming that we’re now providing on to be is kind of really finding a home with Australian viewers.
“We’re very bullish and our expectations are that we will continue to scale over the remainder of the calendar. Our intention is for this year to be a break even, self sustaining business across all of our markets.
“And our ambition in the Australian market is to really be category leading free streamer. We’ve consistently been able to deliver against that promise in North America, and our intention is to do the same thing in Australia.”
Although he would not disclose how many subscribers Tubi now has in Australia, Salmon said there has been healthy growth in customer acquisition as well as more minutes viewed per viewer.
In Australia, films like Bill Murray’s Lost in Translation and the The World’s End, part of the Cornetto trilogy starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are proving popular, as are the true crime and horror movie genres.
Both Barrett and Salmon believe that Tubi’s high impact ad units, low ad load of between 4-6 minutes per hour, and the integration with News Corp’s audience intelligence platform Intent Connect will be able to deliver advertisers incremental reach — a message that stood out among media buyers at News Corp’s All Screens event.
Also attending and keen to talk up Tubi is its hare-brained mascot, who shared these choice words with B&T editor Tom Fogden.
