Fox Corp. announced yesterday that it will acquire streaming platform provider Roku Inc. for approximately $22 billion. The definitive agreement says that Roku shareholders will receive $160 per share in a combination of Class A common stock and cash.
The release says that the deal will give Fox’s sports, news, and entertainment programming access to The Roku Channel, first-party data, and a direct relationship with more than 100 million streaming households worldwide.
The press release laid out four benefits to Fox: The deal, if it closes, increases its scale and reach, expands its position in high growth verticals, creates a more powerful streaming platform, and enhances the company’s long-term growth profile.
“This combination will transform the scope of our company into high-growth verticals and yield a step change in our overall growth profile,” Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer Lachlan Murdock said in a press release announcing the Fox-Roku deal.
“And we are executing this acquisition from a position of financial strength — maintaining our investment grade balance sheet while providing our shareholders with an uninterrupted return of capital program in the form of share buybacks and dividends. Roku pioneered streaming TV and scaled it into a leading CTV platform. Together, we intend to lead its next chapter.”
Roku seems to be on a growth curve. In January 2023, the company said that it had 70 million active accounts. That suggests that its subscriptions increased by almost 43% in about three-and-a-half years.
The transaction is expected to close during the first half of 2027.
Clearly, the Fox/Roku deal will shake up the connected TV platform market. In April, Parks Associates’ Streaming Video Tracker report found that the Roku OS led with 28% of the market. It was followed by the Samsung Tizen OS at 23%. The leaders were followed by Apple tvOS, gaming consoles, and Android TV.
