Tubi is paving a new way for digital creators to enter mainstream entertainment while maintaining their creative identity. The streaming platform’s recently launched “Tubi for Creators” program connects independent digital content creators with traditional Hollywood, offering them distribution, funding, and creative freedom while tapping into Tubi’s 100 million-user audience.

Rich Bloom, GM for Creator Programs and EVP for Business Development at Tubi, sees the program as filling an important gap in the creator ecosystem. “We want to give creators a platform, a little bit of assistance, some funding for production, and then a huge amount of creative freedom to keep doing what has made them successful, but help them jump to the next level,” explains Rich, who joined Tubi in April with nearly two decades of experience working with video creators. 

Throughout his career, he has helped creators expand their distribution and audiences across various platforms. At Tubi, Rich’s role now centers on conceptualizing, launching, and scaling a program that creates a scalable path for digital-native creators and independent filmmakers to reach Hollywood-level exposure.

How ‘Tubi for Creators’ Works

Launched in June, “Tubi for Creators” has quickly grown from six creators and a few hundred videos to 30 creators and several thousand episodes.

The program focuses on creators who are already producing high-quality mid-form and long-form content with strong production values and compelling storytelling across both scripted and unscripted formats. Rather than looking for creators to completely transform their content, Tubi wants to enhance what’s already working.

“We’re looking for creators that are already creating high-quality mid-form and long-form content with high production value, strong storytelling both in scripted and unscripted, and content that we believe is already at a level that’s ready to be on a streaming platform like Tubi and will be a strong fit for our audience,” Rich explains.

Currently, the program allows creators to bring their existing content to the platform on a non-exclusive basis. However, Rich notes that “in the near term, we will start to work with a subset of those creators to bring exclusive content to Tubi.” When that happens, the plan is to provide production funding while still giving creators considerable creative freedom.

Tubi also aims to remain incremental and additive to creators’ existing businesses. “We understand that these creators already have core platforms where they have a large audience and a lot of their business occurs,” Rich notes. “We’re not trying to make it a zero-sum game. We really want to just be this new incremental platform that for a large number of creators can become a more and more meaningful part of their business.”

This creator-friendly approach stems from Rich’s experience working with creators throughout his career and understanding the importance of their genuine creative voices. “I’ve seen the power of giving creators the opportunity to have more resources and some incremental audience and be able to take the success they’ve already had and grow their business,” he reflects.

The Inspiration Behind the Program

The “Tubi for Creators” program emerged from experiments that demonstrated the potential of bringing creator-driven content to traditional streaming platforms. Dana Balch, Director of Product and Consumer Communications at Tubi, points to two key initiatives that laid the groundwork.

“Last year, Tubi launched a program called ‘Studios’ with Issa Rae that gave creators who had a really strong voice and passionate fan base the opportunity to take the next step in their careers and, in most cases, shift from successfully creating short-form content to creating long-form content,” Rich explains.

Dana elaborates on the distinction between “Studios” and “Tubi for Creators”: “These folks in ‘Tubi for Creators’ basically have full production studios to produce the content that they’re making. They’re operating at a really high level. ‘Studios’ is for folks who haven’t gotten there yet, and Tubi is actually filling the gaps for those short-form creators, helping them create everything from episodic series to feature-length films.”

Another catalyst was the success of “Sidelined: The QB and Me,” Tubi’s most successful original film to date. Based on a book from Wattpad, which boasts a passionate built-in audience, and starring TikTok star Noah Beck, the film demonstrated the potential of combining traditional entertainment formats with creator-driven audiences.

Content Strategy and Launch Partners

Tubi carefully selected its initial creator partners to align with existing content categories and audience interests on the platform. This strategy leverages what Rich calls “content rabbit holes” – thematic content journeys that combine both traditional and creator-produced content.

“We really wanted to focus on creators tapping into fandoms that already exist on Tubi,” Rich says. “We talk a lot about building content rabbit holes on Tubi. And we have this vision of creating these content rabbit holes that might be a combination of traditional and creator content in these fandoms that already exist.”

The initial partners represent diverse content categories that have already proven successful on Tubi. Dan and Riya, known for “Beverly Valley High,” were brought on because of Tubi’s success with teen dramas like “Sidelined.” FunnyMike creates comedic original content that resonates with Tubi viewers. Kinigra Deon, who produces high-quality serialized content from her own studio in Alabama, brings both comedies and horror/thriller content that fits well with Tubi’s audience interests. Another partner, Watcher, brings horror and paranormal content that taps into existing fandoms.

This careful matching of creators to established audience interests is powered by Tubi’s content discovery system. “We’ve got really strong machine learning and AI that helps people navigate our platform,” Dana explains. “We know how to get people exactly what they want to watch, and we’ve been doing this for years.”

This technology becomes increasingly important when managing a library as vast as Tubi’s. “We’re very uniquely situated to present the right content for viewers, which is how they can access this massive library,” Dana notes.

Growing the Program

The program currently operates through a combination of Tubi’s outreach efforts and inbound interest from creators. “In the near future, we will have a clearer way for creators to sign up to express interest in joining the program once we get out of this initial phase.”

Dana describes this current period as a crucial learning phase that will inform the program’s future direction. “We’ll figure out what makes sense and what we want to invest in based on both performance, but also the conversations that we have with these creators. We’re driven both by hard numbers and insights, but also these relationships that we’re building and growing in the industry.”

This approach aligns with Tubi’s broader corporate culture. “One of the key tenets of our culture is ‘Swing Big,'” Rich shares. “This was a place where Tubi was really open to swinging big and experimenting and really trying to do something significant in the space.”

The program is expected to scale significantly by the end of 2025. “Our goal is to add dramatically more creators and a much larger library of content,” Rich says. “And we also expect to have some exclusive content on the platform by the end of the year.”

A Connection Between Two Worlds

Rich envisions “Tubi for Creators” becoming a driving force in both creators’ careers and viewers’ entertainment. Success would mean “a meaningful group of creators who can say Tubi played a significant role in the growth of my career and business in a really positive way.”

For viewers, the goal is positioning Tubi as “the place to go for the largest library in terms of depth and breadth of this combination of content from traditional Hollywood content of movies and TV, and the best creator content in the world.”

Rich notes that the distinction between creator content and traditional Hollywood content is steadily blurring. “In a couple of years, it might not even exist,” he predicts. 

Dana adds, “We understand that entertainment and the creator space are changing over time, and we’re changing with it. Our goal is ultimately to connect to audiences and fandoms in whatever ways that they are finding things entertaining and exciting.”

The first step was to acknowledge that creators have built businesses on existing platforms. The second was to offer a complementary opportunity rather than demand exclusivity from the start.

As the program continues to develop through 2025 and beyond, Tubi aims for it to become a new model for how streaming platforms and creators collaborate in the entertainment industry. “Our goal is to be alongside it and ensure that Tubi is a part of the story and a part of the narrative,” Dana concludes.