Fox finished buying the top U.S. streaming platform months ahead of schedule, after promising regulators it would keep rivals on the home screen.
Fox spent decades fighting for space in other companies’ channel guides. Now it owns one. Fox Corp. completed its roughly $22 billion acquisition of Roku on Friday, Nov. 6, TheWrap reported, closing a deal announced in June well ahead of the first-half 2027 target set out in the companies’ original announcement.
Roku shareholders receive $95.30 in cash plus 0.9799 Fox Class A shares for each share, leaving them with about 26% of the combined company, according to Adweek. The June terms were slightly different, at $96 in cash plus 0.9693 shares, valued then at $160 a share. Fox lined up a $12 billion bridge loan from Morgan Stanley to help pay for it.
What Fox bought is reach. Roku says it serves more than 100 million streaming households, including more than half of U.S. broadband homes. Paired with Tubi, which TheWrap says reaches 110 million monthly users, the two accounted for 4.8% of U.S. streaming viewing in August, citing Nielsen, which tied them with Disney.
Roku now sits inside a new unit, Fox Digital Platforms, alongside Tubi and Fox One. Paul Cheesbrough runs it as co-chair and chief executive, while Roku founder Anthony Wood joins Fox’s board and becomes the unit’s other co-chair. Fox is targeting about $400 million in cost savings within two years, Fox Business reported. Lachlan Murdoch said the priority is to “relentlessly serve audiences and partners.”
The approval came with strings. After the Justice Department issued a second request in September, Fox committed to carry non-Fox content for at least three years, to keep rivals from being buried in search and to wall off data about competitors’ content, according to TheWrap.
Those promises have an expiration date. Watch how Netflix, Disney and the rest negotiate home-screen placement with a platform now owned by a competitor, and what changes once the three-year commitments run out.
Sources
- TheWrap – Fox Completes $22 Billion Roku Acquisition – https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/deals-ma/fox-completes-22-billion-roku-acquisition/
- Adweek – Fox Corp. Completes $22 Billion Deal for Roku – https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/fox-corp-completes-22-billion-deal-for-roku/
- Fox Business – Fox Corp completes acquisition of Roku – https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/fox-completes-acquisition-streaming-giant-roku
- TechCrunch – Fox completes its $22B acquisition of Roku – https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/06/fox-completes-its-22b-acquisition-of-roku/
- SEC (Roku Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1) – Fox and Roku joint announcement, June 15, 2026 – https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001428439/000114036126025115/ef20076172_ex99-1.htm
Featured photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters / Unsplash, Unsplash License.
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