With Fox set to acquire Roku for $22 billion, the company will also own top free ad-supported streaming players.
Fox owns Tubi, which accounted for 2.2% of total U.S. TV viewing in March, while the Roku Channel accounted for 3%, according to the latest Nielsen Gauge, putting it just below Amazon’s Prime Video. For now, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said the plan is to keep the two services operating separately, noting the strength of owning the two services.
“If you look at Tubi Channel and Roku Channel together, they’re incredibly complementary services,” Murdoch said on a call with investors on Monday. “There’s about a third of overlap between the audience, between the two, so that they’re not identical audiences. Combining the two together, you know, triples the reach of the combined service.”
He continued: “It is too early to say, but our expectations are to keep the services separate. They serve consumers and viewers in different ways.”
The strength, as Roku CEO Anthony Wood points out, is primarily in creating a larger advertising platform for co-working.
“The combination of the Roku Channel and our ad inventory that we have distributed through the platform and Tubi creates a very large, measurable advertising platform, and then a combination of data and ad technology,” Wood said on the call. “I think this will be incredibly beneficial to our business.”
One of the main differences between the two services is the fact that the majority of the content on Tubi is video on demand, while Roku mainly consists of FAST channels. Additionally, the Roku Channel is largely used while using Roku, while Tubi is widely available. Roku is also the owner of the $2.99 monthly subscription service Howdy, which the company said is rapidly gaining traction
Tubi has also turned to producing some of its own original content as it leans toward specific genres and programming that appeal to its younger, more multicultural audience, while the Roku Channel has shifted gears toward originals, following the release of its major feature film, Stranger: Al Yankovic StoreIn 2022, to focus more on creating content around major sporting events and holiday events.
