The Fox-owned streamer Tubi, which has been expanding its presence in the YA market with films and series, is putting down roots in the Great White North with its first Canadian office.

The Toronto-based office is reportedly a 10,000-square-foot space, with 21 employees. It can fit 50 people, and it seems like it’ll focus on the technology part of its business, including engineering and product. As of press time, Tubi has not responded to Kidscreen‘s request for comment on whether the office will be developing local originals. But Derek Watson, Tubi’s SVP of engineering, noted that the streamer’s audience is growing in Canada, and that Toronto is a creative hub in the country, in a LinkedIn post about the opening.

The move comes as Tubi aims to rapidly grow its YA content catalogue, a genre that’s important for the company, Tubi’s chief content officer Adam Lewison has previously said. Tubi has more than 100 million monthly active users, and more than half of them are Gen Z (58%). That’s why the AVOD has been commissioning more in the genre, including last month’s order for YA supernatural murder mystery Remember Me, based on popular kids book author Christopher Pike’s same-name story. Also in March, it unveiled the YA romcom Game On, about two competing e-sports players who battle it out in a video game, but start falling for each other in real life.

Both of these series were produced by the Toronto-based company Blue Ice Pictures. That studio has made multiple YA projects for Tubi, including Kissing is the Easy Part and Killer Body Count. They’re also the YA whisperers behind series such as Ginny & Georgia (Netflix) and Astrid & Lilly Save the World (SYFY). 

Several of the platform’s other popular YA titles come from Canadian studios, too, including last year’s high school rom-com How to Lose a Popularity Contest from Thunderbird Entertainment and Great Pacific Media. Great Pacific was also behind Sidelined (pictured) and its sequel Sidelined 2: Intercepted. Sidelined reached 19.9% of Tubi’s total viewers in Canada (beating the US’s 17.9% reach) following its launch in 2024. (The Great Pacific Media label has since been phased out after it and its parentco Thunderbird was acquired by and absorbed into Blue Ant Media.)

More broadly, Tubi has also been busy building up its larger kids catalogue through acquisitions. In the last year, it has picked up episodes of classic Sesame Street and Looney Tunes, as well as Cartoon Network shows from the ’90s and ’00s like Ben 10 and The Powerpuff Girls.

Beyond kids content, the service has acquired more than 600 movies and TV shows from the likes of Disney, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery for Canada. The streamer even worked with The Harris Poll to research Canadian viewing habits to better understand the demo. (It found that most Canadians are cool with watching ads for free content, and that Canadians are embracing streaming as a way to spend time with family.