Tubi founder and CEO Farhad Massoudi is exiting the free AVOD platform in a restructuring by parent Fox Corporation. Paul Cheesbrough, Fox Corp. CTO and president of digital, will take the reins as CEO of the Tubi Media Group, which will house Fox’s standalone digital businesses — including Tubi, Credible and Blockchain Creative Labs — as well as the digital platforms and teams that underpin Fox’s wider digital business in news, sports and entertainment. TMG will be comprised of three divisions: Tubi Streaming, Fox Digital Platforms Group and the AdRise Video Network.

Tubi’s AdRise Video Network now aggregates Fox video inventory including Tubi, FOX Entertainment, FOX News, FOX Sports and FOX TV Stations. “AdRise is named after the original ad network Massoudi launched before creating Tubi as a content business on the front of it” in 2010, Deadline reports.

Since Tubi was acquired by Fox for $440 million in 2020 it operated as an independent subsidiary. It now becomes integrated with Fox’s streaming business.

Massoudi founded Tubi in 2010. He is staying through the end of June to assist with the transition before “returning to his entrepreneurial roots,” per Deadline. The search has commenced for a new Tubi Streaming CEO who will report to Los Angeles-based Cheesbrough.

“The creation of this division reflects the growing momentum of FOX’s digital businesses and will provide the necessary strategy, leadership and focus to take them to the next level,” Fox Corporation CEO and executive chair Lachlan Murdoch said in an announcement, calling Tubi “the clear market leader in AVOD in the U.S.”

Deadline characterizes Fox as “an early AVOD adopter before the model was fully embraced by almost all major streamers, including Netflix,” adding that Cheesbrough, who ran point on the acquisition and management of Tubi, “remains bullish on the platform’s future amid an industry-wide streaming reckoning.”

In 2023 financial reporting, Fox Corporation touted total Tubi viewing time up 41 percent and said revenue has grown 25 percent. Cheesbrough cited “unrivaled growth in the AVOD space” including a “record-setting 4K streaming operation for Super Bowl LVII.”

In its inaugural year as part of Fox, “Tubi more than tripled its upfront revenue and has regularly been listed as a main revenue driver during Fox’s quarterly earnings reports, growing 400 percent since joining the Fox family, “recently crossing the 1 percent Nielsen rating threshold,” writes Deadline, noting that Tubi has “grown its footprint through access to Fox shows and content library deals and has ventured into original programming.”