Fox Group announced that it will acquire the streaming media platform Roku for approximately US$22 billion in cash and stock, which will become the largest acquisition in the history of the media company controlled by the Murdoch family. After the transaction is completed, Fox hopes to make up for its long-term shortcomings in large-scale direct distribution channels by mastering the TV operating system and front-line data "pipelines."
Under terms of the deal announced early Monday, Fox will acquire Roku for $160 per share, with $96 in cash and the remainder in shares of Fox Class A common stock. After the transaction is completed, existing Fox shareholders will own approximately 73% of the combined company, while Roku shareholders will own approximately 27%. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2027 and still requires approval from regulatory authorities and shareholders of both parties.
The question outsiders are: What exactly is Fox buying? Far more than just a "TV stick" hardware company, Roku is currently the most influential connected TV operating system in North America and the number one TV streaming platform by hours watched in the United States, Canada and Mexico, reaching more than half of U.S. broadband households. For Fox, Roku’s data and ability to reach users at the household level are the “crown jewel” of the entire deal, not the hardware business itself.
Over the past few years, Fox has continued to expand its live content footprint to include NFL, MLB, NASCAR, Big Ten Football, World Cup, as well as resources such as Fox News and Fox Business. However, Fox has always lacked a truly large-scale direct distribution carrier. In 2020, Fox acquired the on-demand platform Tubi for US$440 million, opening an entry point for it in the field of on-demand streaming media. The acquisition of Roku this time is equivalent to acquiring the mainstream TV "operating system" on which the content depends.
In fact, Fox's relationship with Roku goes back more than a decade. As early as 2013, Fox invested in Roku, and its shareholding ratio once reached 5%. It was sold years later to raise funds for the acquisition of Tubi. In this sense, this merger is not only a "reunion" for both parties, but also a much more costly "homecoming".
Fox said the combined company would become the third-largest player in the U.S. television market by viewing share. However, compared with the optimistic statements from the transaction parties, the initial feedback from the capital market was quite cold. Fox's stock price fell about 15% on Monday, reflecting investor concerns about the large debt burden the company will carry and also exposing Wall Street's skepticism about the traditional media giant's strategic judgment of spending $22 billion to acquire an "connected TV company." More signally, Roku shares were also lower on the day.
From a pricing perspective, Fox's offer represents a significant premium to Roku's recent stock price. The offer represents a premium of about 33% from Thursday's closing price before Reuters first disclosed that Roku was seeking to sell. In the context of continued consolidation in the media industry, this premium not only reflects Fox's determination, but also strengthens the market logic of "scale is king."
Currently, the North American media industry is experiencing waves of mergers and acquisitions. In 2025, Paramount was acquired by Skydance Media, and just last week, the U.S. Department of Justice approved Paramount-Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Whether it is this series of transactions or Fox’s acquisition of Roku, the core logic is highly consistent: either go large or be marginalized.
From the perspective of user behavior, streaming media has firmly occupied the main position of TV viewing. Nielsen data in March 2026 shows that streaming media accounts for approximately 48% of total U.S. TV viewing, while traditional broadcast television accounts for approximately 20%, and cable TV accounts for approximately 21%. Among streaming platforms, YouTube ranks first with a share of 13% of total TV viewing time, followed by Netflix with 8%. Roku's self-operated The Roku Channel currently accounts for about 3% of total viewing. Although the proportion is not outstanding, considering that its platform itself carries a large number of other streaming media viewers, there is obviously greater traffic and business potential behind this number.
In terms of paid streaming media layout, Fox started late. NBC launched Peacock as early as 2020, and CBS launched a service in 2014 that was later upgraded to Paramount+. In contrast, Fox will not launch its own paid service Fox One until 2025. From this perspective, the acquisition of Roku can also be seen as a strategic shift for Fox to try to bypass the "arms race" of traditional subscription streaming media: instead of continuing to increase the content level, it is better to directly control the "pipeline" at the distribution layer to gain a more favorable position in the new round of media restructuring.