Fox Completes $22 Billion Roku Deal; Home Screen Is the Open Question

Fox Corporation has formally completed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, announced in June. Five months is an unusually short timeline for a deal of this size, and the US Department of Justice approved the transaction after reviewing it.

The closing significantly expands Fox's footprint in digital. The bigger question is what direction a platform reaching more than 100 million households will take in the hands of a media group that produces news and entertainment content.

Roku's scale and Fox's digital push

Roku reaches more than 100 million households worldwide. It serves as a gateway to streaming platforms such as Netflix, YouTube TV and Disney+, and it also sells advertising and offers subscription bundles. The company owns a separate streaming service, Tubi.

One notable detail: in 2020, Fox sold its Roku shares to help finance its acquisition of Tubi. The group has now brought the company it once held shares in fully under its own roof.

Leadership: Anthony Wood joins Fox's board

Roku founder Anthony Wood will join Fox's board of directors. He will also co-lead a new unit called Fox Digital Platforms, which will oversee Roku along with Tubi, Fox One and the group's other digital brands.

The deal closed around the same time as reports on Fox News ratings. According to the figures cited, the channel's viewership fell 27 percent year over year in October. Over the same period, CNN's audience rose 3 percent and MS NOW's (formerly MSNBC) rose 16 percent. Even so, Fox News still draws more viewers than CNN and MS NOW combined.

Uncertainty for Roku users

What the acquisition means for Roku owners is not yet clear. Fox says Roku will remain an open platform for all of its content partners. Still, the concern is less about which services might be removed than about what gets prominence on the home screen.

The home screen is one of the most valuable spaces for deciding what content users encounter. Given Fox's right-leaning political stance, some worry the space could be used to promote the group's own content. That remains speculation for now; Fox maintains that Roku will stay an open platform.

What is certain at this point is that Roku now sits under Fox and that Wood will have a say in the new digital platforms unit. How the content users see on their home screens might change will become clear in the coming period.