Fox and Roku close in on power shift

Fox’s $22 – Fox plans to spend $22 billion to acquire Roku, putting a major media company in full control of a major streaming TV platform for the first time. The deal, expected to close in 2027, raises unanswered questions about Roku’s subscription services, carriage neg

By the time most people notice a change on their TV, it’s already too late to stop it.

On Monday, Fox announced it will spend $22 billion to acquire Roku. Roku’s smart TVs and streaming players are in 100 million homes worldwide. which means this isn’t just another corporate deal—it’s a handoff of platform power at massive scale. If the transaction closes as expected in 2027. it will be the first instance of a major media company having full control over a major streaming TV platform.

Fox and Roku frame the move as a win for shareholders. but the announcement left a long list of practical questions hanging—questions about what happens to Roku’s own services. how Roku’s “open” stance may shift when it becomes a bargaining chip. and how much of Roku’s home screen could tip toward Fox properties.

What happens to Howdy and Frndly TV?

Roku’s two subscription streaming services—Howdy and Frndly TV—are at the center of the deal’s biggest unknown. The services have often looked like side bets rather than core strategic pillars, which makes their future under Fox feel uncertain.

Howdy is the more prominent of the two. It resembles Netflix in its early days as a fledgling ad-free streamer. Its catalog of movies and shows is described as small and largely forgettable. but it has been building momentum through recent licensing deals with Disney. Sony. and Warner Bros. Discovery. Antenna estimates that Howdy now has more than 1 million subscribers.

Under Fox ownership, the unanswered question is whether Howdy will receive real investment—or whether it will be treated as harmless supplemental revenue from back-catalog titles while rivals focus on their main streaming bets.

Frndly TV presents even sharper uncertainty. Roku acquired the low-cost, rerun-centric live TV streaming service for $185 million last year. At the time. Roku’s likely strategy was to expand the lineup and gain a bigger foothold in pay TV packaging. but that hasn’t happened. Roku continues to push Frndly TV aggressively on its home screen. yet the service remains niche. with the Hallmark Channel as its main draw.

Fox’s interest here isn’t clear. Would Fox want to step into being a pay TV distributor itself? And if it does, does the deal create a path for a Frndly TV bundle that includes Fox channels?

Is Roku’s reach a bargaining chip now?

Fox and Roku say they’re committed to running Roku as “an open, partner-friendly platform” and to widely distributing Fox content. The language matters because Roku’s openness is supposed to protect other streaming partners from being squeezed.

But Roku’s openness has reportedly taken a back seat to business goals on several occasions. HBO Max and Peacock couldn’t launch on Roku because they weren’t offering favorable enough terms. YouTube threatened to pull its apps from Roku. And Fox temporarily pulled its apps from Roku ahead of the 2020 Super Bowl—likely tied to squabbles over shared ad revenue.

Those episodes point to a fear pay TV distributors have reason to carry: once Roku is inside Fox’s corporate structure, could future carriage negotiations drag other platforms into the middle of Fox disputes?

If YouTube TV or Fubo end up in a carriage dispute with Fox, does that jeopardize their distribution on Roku devices? And as Fox looks for new bundles with other streamers, does owning a major streaming platform give it leverage it didn’t have before?

For how long will Tubi and the Roku Channel stay separate?

Fox and Roku are both deeply invested in free, ad-supported streaming, through their respective services Tubi and the Roku Channel. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch says. “our expectation is fully to keep [Tubi and the Roku Channel] separate.” He argues the two services serve different needs and that only a third of their audiences overlap.

Still, the separation reads as fragile. Both services are free platforms built largely on studios’ back catalogs. Both also include collections of linear TV channels. And both depend on scale to generate ad revenue.

If Roku is going to promote both services across its 100 million active streaming homes. audience overlap is likely to shrink as viewers are nudged toward different options. The bigger question is what happens when the economic incentive for consolidation outweighs the legal and branding reasons for splitting them.

At some point, it may make sense to combine the Tubi and Roku Channel catalogs, ad inventory, and tech stacks. The insistence on separation also can be read as a strategy to dodge antitrust concerns—given how strong both services are.

How much more biased will Roku’s home screen become?

Right now, Roku already heavily promotes its own content across the home screen. Howdy, Frndly, and the Roku Channel have home screen tiles by default. The prominently advertised Live TV Guide menu routes into the Roku Channel’s linear streams.

Roku’s CEO Anthony Wood has already indicated it will promote Fox properties as well. That raises the stakes because self-promotion on streaming platforms can go too far. turning the home screen into a sales tool rather than a navigation system. The new Roku home screen is already described as a balancing act between useful content and promotional pressure.

With Fox One and Fox Nation joining the mix—alongside Tubi—how aggressive will Roku become when it’s no longer just promoting partners, but also promoting its new parent’s portfolio?

What happens to Roku’s smart home stuff?

Roku’s smart home products appear to be an afterthought, even in the way the deal was presented. Fox’s press release and investor presentation reportedly didn’t mention smart home at all.

Roku’s product lineup includes cameras, smart bulbs, and other gadgets, but the series is described as existing partly to keep up with ecosystems dominated by Amazon and Google. Those competitors have robust smart home systems tied closely to Fire TV and Google TV.

Roku doesn’t even design these products itself. They are based entirely on existing devices from Wyze Labs.

Maybe the acquisition changes nothing. But given how much investment smart home gear can demand—and how far that business is from Fox’s core competency—Roku users could reasonably want reassurance that this isn’t being quietly left to drift.

Is there anything in this for consumers at all?

For all the talk about combined reach, shareholder value, and more invasive targeted ads, one thing is striking by its absence: consumer benefit.

The announcement includes no clear explanation of how Roku users will get a better experience or how Fox viewers will see an improved product. The companies don’t offer any concrete promises about whether the deal changes what people watch. how they discover it. or how the platform behaves once Fox has full control.

A platform shift like this can be felt quickly—through ads. app availability. promotion levels. and the balance of what a viewer sees first. But the most important part of Monday’s announcement is still unanswered: what. if anything. will be better for the people paying attention to their screens every day.

Fox Roku $22 billion acquisition Lachlan Murdoch Anthony Wood Tubi Roku Channel Howdy Frndly TV smart home targeted ads streaming platforms carriage negotiations 2027 deal