Fox Corporation to Acquire Roku for $22 Billion

Fox Corporation agreed to acquire Roku for $22 billion. The transaction would give Fox ownership of the two largest free, ad-supported streaming services in the United States.

U.S. TV viewing in March, according to Nielsen Gauge data. The Roku Channel captured 3 percent of viewing that month, placing it just under Amazon’s Prime Video. Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corporation, said on an investor call Monday that the plan is to keep Tubi and the Roku Channel operating separately.

He noted about a third overlap between the audiences of the two services. “Bringing the two of them together, you know, effectively triples the reach of the combined service,” Murdoch said. “It’s too early to say, but our expectation is fully that you keep the services separate.

They serve consumers and our viewers in different ways,” he continued. Roku CEO Anthony Wood said the combination of the Roku Channel, ad inventory distributed through the platform, and Tubi creates an extremely large and scaled ad platform, along with combined data and ad tech. The majority of content on Tubi is video-on-demand, while the Roku Channel is primarily made up of FAST channels.

The Roku Channel is largely used on Roku devices, while Tubi is available widely. 99 monthly subscription service Howdy. The Roku Channel released the feature film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story in 2022 and has since focused more on content around big sporting and holiday events.

Tubi has leaned into producing some of its own original content aimed at its younger and more multicultural audience.