Fox to buy Roku for $22 billion
Fox News’ electronic news ticker, July 20, 2025, at News Corp. in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA. He reads the headlines in his building.
Eduardo Muñoz | Reuters
Fox Corp. reached agreement to obtain roku This figure of approximately $22 billion marks a new phase in media consolidation at a time when the industry is grappling with changing dynamics and increasing challenges.
On Monday, Fox announced it would acquire Roku for $160 per share in a cash-and-stock transaction. Fox plans to finance the cash portion of the deal with a combination of cash on hand and new debt. The company announced that it received a $12 billion loan for the transaction.
Fox’s shares were trading down about 15% in premarket trading. Roku was largely unchanged on Monday, but the stock rose 20% on Friday on initial reports of a potential sale.
The merger would bring together Fox’s news and sports channels, as well as its free ad-supported streamer Tubi, with Roku, a maker of streaming devices and also the home of The Roku Channel, a service similar to Tubi.
On Monday, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch called it a “defining moment” for the company.
The proposed acquisition comes nearly seven years after Fox’s last major deal, in which it divested entertainment assets in a $71 billion deal. Disney. Since then, Fox’s portfolio consists of TV channels such as broadcast network Fox, which has been broadcasting the FIFA World Cup since last week, and cable network Fox News Channel.
Fox acquired Tubi for $440 million in 2020. The service was a response to the long-running streaming wars before the announcement of Fox One, a direct-to-consumer option that launched last year.
In a call with investors on Monday, Murdoch noted that Fox was both “an early investor in Roku and a long-time commercial partner.”
He added that Fox has “redirected” the company since 2019, focusing on live news and sports and increasing advertising revenue.
Advertising has become important again for media companies as they look to build streaming platforms and focus on live sports and events that attract the largest audiences.
Murdoch said in a call with investors Monday that the companies plan to keep Tubi and The Roku Channel separate after the deal closes. He called them “incredibly complementary services” with about a third of overlap between their audiences.
Tubi sees the majority of its audience for on-demand content, unlike free channels that mimic the traditional pay TV package.
The logo of Roku, a video streaming company, is displayed on a video sign in Times Square following the company’s IPO on the Nasdaq Market in New York on September 28, 2017.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
“Roku has a very large platform business of advertising and subscriptions,” Roku CEO Anthony Wood said on Monday’s call.
Wood called Roku’s platform a market leader in the U.S. and said it reaches more than 100 million streaming households worldwide and counts 145 billion hours of engagement annually.
Both Woods and Murdoch said their companies entered the deal “from a position of strength.”
Murdoch added that the addition of Roku allows Fox to “expand into new markets, expand into streaming and subscriptions digitally, of course, and aggressively move the business into the 21st century.”
Fox said Monday it expects to see about $400 million in cost synergies and additional revenue growth from the deal. Once the acquisition is completed, existing Fox shareholders will own approximately 73% of the combined company and Roku shareholders will own approximately 27%.
The deal, which has already been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is expected to be completed in the first half of 2027.
