Cutting the Cord? You Need to Know About Tubi
- Paul Thurrott
- Jun 19, 2018
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20
Cord-cutters are familiar with popular services like Netflix and Hulu. But many have probably never heard about Tubi.
So let’s fix that.
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Tubi is a free but ad-supported movie and TV service that has a library of about 7,500 titles and is supported by the studios Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, and Starz. It’s available virtually everywhere you’ll want it—on mobile and in the living room via Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Xbox, and PlayStation—and there’s even a web version.
There’s no catch. No, not even the ads, which are actually pretty innocuous in my couple of days of experience. In fact, they’re less of an interruption than some of the ads I’ve seen on paid services like PlayStation Vue and YouTube TV.
Well, I guess there is one catch: If you live in Europe, you’re currently out of luck because of GDPR. But Tubi will be up and running there soon, too.
The quality of the content library is actually decent. Yes, there is absolutely some crap. But if you look at Netflix today and remove all of the original content and compare what’s left to Tubi, it would be a close call.
Tubi might even come out ahead: I’ve added reasonably-decent movies like Out of Time, Sliver, Europa Report, Suspect Zero, The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Clear and Present Danger, and others to my own queue. And I haven’t really browsed the TV section yet. (Actually, The IT Crowd is there.) Yes, there is some schlock. There’s tons of that on Netflix too, and we pay for that service.
Navigation is excellent, and the service offers many obvious categories (including a nice one called “Not on Netflix”) and search.
Can Tubi replace a Netflix or Hulu? No. But it’s a great addition to whatever library of content apps you’re currently using. And if you’re on Apple TV, like I am, Tubi integrates with the TV app.
There is absolutely zero reason not to check this out.