Fox to acquire Roku for $22 billion to scale streaming ads

This acquisition signals an aggressive shift by Fox to reduce its reliance on traditional linear distribution by controlling the primary consumer gateway to streaming. By owning the hardware-level interface and its rich automatic content recognition (ACR) data, Fox can offer advertisers unduplicated reach across its live content and Roku’s scaled CTV inventory. Locally, this accelerates the trend of media giants moving toward full-stack technology ownership to capture shifting ad budgets. Industry-wide, it intensifies pressure on legacy broadcasters to secure their own operating systems or forge deep technical alliances. Watch for the integration of Roku’s data with Fox’s recently launched Fox One service as a indicator of future bundling strategies.

The Fox-Roku tie-up arrives amidst a wave of horizontal and retail-media consolidation within the CTV sector. Per Bloomberg and Reuters, June 2026, the Justice Department recently cleared the way for a $110 billion merger between Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, which will combine Paramount+ and Max into a single market heavyweight. This deal, along with Walmart’s June 2026 completion of its $2.3 billion acquisition of Vizio, underscores the industry's focus on owning the operating system to capture high-margin advertising revenue. Walmart is already integrating Vizio’s SmartCast OS with its Walmart Connect retail media business to link viewing data directly to purchase behavior.

Financial performance has been a catalyst for these moves. In February 2026, Roku reported its first-ever full-year profit, reaching $88.4 million in net income for 2025 on $4.74 billion in revenue. By April 2026, Roku had surpassed 100 million streaming households, driven by a 28% year-over-year surge in platform revenue. Simultaneously, Fox has been managing a transition period; per Fox’s May 2026 earnings report, its Tubi streaming service reached 100 million monthly active users and achieved its third consecutive quarter of profitability. Analysts from Madison and Wall estimate that the combined Fox-Roku entity will control approximately 16% of all U.S. streaming advertising spend, positioning it to compete directly with Amazon, which reported $17.2 billion in ad revenue for Q1 2026.