Fox to Buy Roku in $22B Deal, Adding Nearly 100M Streaming Viewers

Fox to – Fox has agreed to buy Roku for $22 billion in a deal announced June 15, combining Roku’s The Roku Channel and Fox’s Tubi to reach nearly 100 million ad-supported streaming subscribers. The purchase also gives Fox control of a major connected-TV distribution pl

On a summer morning, the streaming interface got a new buyer—and a lot of leverage. Fox announced on June 15 that it will purchase Roku in a $22 billion deal, pulling one of the biggest ad-supported free-streaming platforms into Fox’s orbit.

The promise on paper is reach. Roku brings 100 million subscribers on its ad-supported The Roku Channel. while Fox’s own Tubi is described as close to 100 million subscribers on its ad-supported service. The combined audience is meant to be bigger than the sum of its parts. but the most valuable part of the purchase isn’t the hardware Roku sells—it’s the advertising funnel inside the Roku experience.

Fox also gains control of the leader in the smart TV device market. with a 32% market share in the US connected TV market ahead of Amazon. Apple. and Samsung. according to Pixalate. That gives Fox something streaming companies rarely control outright: the distribution layer where viewers land. scroll. and decide what plays next.

Roku may be widely associated with streaming sticks and connected TVs. but those products accounted for less than a quarter of the company’s revenue in 2025. The core revenue segment is the one Fox is really buying. In 2025. the main segment brought in $4.1 billion. coming primarily from ads sold on The Roku Channel. as well as sponsored placements on the Roku interface.

Roku’s ad business has become harder to rely on for pure device sales because the market is crowded. Amazon. Google. and Xiaomi have flooded it with cheap streaming sticks—under $40—making consistent revenue tougher for Roku to generate from hardware alone. For viewers, it’s a familiar tradeoff: cheaper ways to watch more of everything. For platforms. it means the question shifts from “Can you sell a device?” to “Can you keep a viewer’s attention long enough to monetize them?”.

Fox and Roku are moving deeper into that fight as ad-supported tiers reshape streaming habits. Netflix. HBO Max. and Disney+ have all introduced cheaper ad-supported subscription tiers. while Roku and Tubi compete with YouTube. TikTok. and other freemium video services. The deal fits that trend: where consumers look for low-cost viewing. ad-supported platforms try to capture the eyeballs—and the data that comes with them.

Fox has been careful about one thing, at least for now. Even though The Roku Channel and Tubi are described as very similar, the company says it will not merge them.

“If you look at Tubi and the Roku channel together. they are incredibly complementary services. ” Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on an investor call. per The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s about a third overlap between the audience. between the two of them. so that they’re not identical audiences. Bringing the two of them together effectively triples the reach of the combined service.”.

That “not identical audiences” line matters because it’s an admission that the real work is not just buying viewers, but keeping them distinct enough to expand the total pool.

The sequencing of the plan also carries a familiar tension in streaming history. When Disney originally acquired most of Hulu. it said the two platforms were complementary. yet it has been “itching ever since” to fully take over Hulu and merge the platforms into a larger streaming powerhouse. The same may happen to The Roku Channel and Tubi over time.

There’s also the practical reality of regulation and access. Even if the deal is unlikely to face the same level of regulatory heat as Warner Bros. Netflix. and Paramount buyout drama—especially in the current political climate—there will still be a period for both sides to file antitrust and competition filings. Roku’s dominant position as a streaming distributor may also force Fox to sign agreements that allow rivals to be featured on the platform and to retain some access to Roku’s physical remote control buttons.

Fox expects to close the deal in the first half of 2027. For viewers, the immediate effect may look like more choices and more ads. For competitors, it looks like the distribution gate just changed hands—and the person holding it now has reasons to steer the conversation back to its own programming.

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