Tubi wants to bring TikTok stars to your TV screens

That 45-minute TikTok rabbit hole you went down last night? Tubi is trying to make it into a TV show.

Last week, the Fox-owned free streaming platform partnered with TikTok to launch the “Creatorverse Incubator,” a program designed to turn internet creators into full-blown showrunners on Tubi.

TikTok → Tubi pipeline

A select group of short-form video creators will team up with Tubi to develop original long-form series, both scripted and unscripted. Think: dating shows, competition series, and whatever else your algorithm has already convinced you to watch at 2 am.

• Creators will keep creative control, while Tubi handles the funding and marketing to bring those ideas to life.
• TikTok’s global head of entertainment partnerships, Dawn Yang, frames the move as part of a bigger push to “empower creators” beyond short-form content.

Tubi says its first group of participating TikTok creators will be announced later this summer.

Driving the move: Tubi has been leaning hard into internet-native talent outside of the traditional Hollywood pipelines in recent years. The new TikTok partnership represents a shift towards prioritizing creators with built-in audiences, compared to previous programs like its Stubios initiative aimed at up-and-coming filmmakers.

Big picture: Tubi held a 6.2% share of total ad-supported streaming in the US as of December, per Nielsen data. That places the platform—and its 100+ million monthly active users—ahead of streamers like Netflix, Peacock, and Paramount+ in the ad-supported category.