Club Benefits
Fox just announced a deal to acquire Roku, and it could shake up the streaming world in a major way. The deal, which is a $22 billion megadeal, is set to go through in the first half of 2027, so its impacts won't be felt right away. But once it closes, it could eliminate one of the best free streaming services entirely.
The issue here is that Fox owns Tubi, which is probably the best free streamer out there at this point. Roku, meanwhile, owns the Roku Channel, which is good, but not quite as good as Tubi.
If Fox does close this deal, it wouldn't make sense for them to have two free streaming services. They would almost certainly shutter one of them, and while Roku is a household name for streaming devices, Tubi has far more brand recognition among streaming services. So it'd likely be the Roku Channel that ends up on the chopping block.
On the one hand, Tubi has a better app, so I won't be heartbroken if the Roku Channel disappears as an icon on my home screen. But these streaming services acquire different shows and movies for their libraries; there's a lot of overlap, but there are plenty of titles only available on one or the other.
So to be clear, losing the Roku Channel would lead to less free streaming content available to consumers. That's a loss, no matter how you feel about the quality of the services themselves. And, it's not the only streaming service that might get shown the door in this massive deal.
What about Howdy?
To recap, with this Fox and Roku deal, we'll likely lose the Roku Channel. We probably won't lose Roku's hardware lineup. Some tweaks might be made, but Roku streaming devices and Roku TVs are surely why Fox bought the company in the first place.
But then, there's Howdy. This is a budget streaming service that gives you 10,000+ hours of shows and movies without ads. It costs $2.99 a month, and it's fairly new. Roku's CEO, Anthony Wood, has been positive about the service in earnings calls, but we don't have any hard data on how it's performing in terms of revenue or user growth.
I've used Howdy a bit, and it's good. I'm not sure I want to pay $3 a month just to eliminate ads, but in terms of the app, the available shows and movies, etc., it's decent enough.
But is "decent" enough to justify Fox keeping the streaming service? That's a trickier question. Especially since Fox relies on carriage fees on cable networks and its new streaming service, Fox One, to generate revenues.
Howdy doesn't really compete with Fox One, which is tailored more around live sports and Fox News. But it could arguably compete with cable for some cord cutters. After all, if you just flip through channels looking for anything to watch, $2.99 is much cheaper than any cable bill.
Ultimately, I think Fox will make a decision on Howdy based on data that we, the public, don't really have. If they look at Roku's books and see Howdy brings in profit, or brings in user base growth, they'll likely keep it around. If it's a money loser and not really growing, they might use the acquisition to shut it down. But it doesn't directly compete with any of Fox's current offerings, so there's no reason it couldn't stick around.
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