Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion | CNN Business
I really love this: ““It’s essential that Roku remain open and partner-friendly business,” he said on a call with analysts. “We don’t see that changing at all.””
Right.
In purely tangential news, Fox will be renaming Roku to Henhouse.
[Moderating]
It looks like this discussion is more about the political implications of this move than the artistic ones. Moving to IMHO.
I think my old tee vee that requires Roku to work is on the cusp of crapping out. I won’t need Roku for the new one. Good incentive to replace it sooner rather than later.
The influence of Fox is all over Roku as it is. In a way, I guess they’re just formalizing it.
Aw man, I JUST bought my Roku. It’s not even two weeks old!
Shitloads of free apps/channels on Roku, most of them independent and/or weird.
Now.
That sucks, Karen. But it will probably be awhile before they get rid of all the PBS/BBC/Black/Asian/Independent channels, so you might get some use out of it before that happens. I hope so.
What actual changes to content do people expect to happen in both the short and long term?
See @Aspenglow’s response above. PBS should be on the chopping block pretty soon, followed by any service that doesn’t toe the orthodox line*.
Another consequence will be a flood of texts/emails based on Roku’s customer information which will be available to Faux once the assimilation is complete.
*Disclaimer: I don’t use all that many Roku channels, so I can’t be very specific; but there will almost certainly be a purge.
Those apps are all available outside of Roku through various streaming sticks/smart tvs. Not that I doubt they would, but they would be shooting themselves in the foot by removing services, since people could just jump to another platform.
What’s more likely is they’ll push Fox services to the top. Or maybe even have some Fox exclusives to Roku.
How do I get The B-Zone, B Movie TV and Otherworlds Television without a Roku stick or tv?
I was replying to the previous chain talking about things like PBS/BBC/etc.
But the point still stands, why would FoxRoku remove those?
I agree with @AlsoNamedBort here. Companies generally buy other companies to make money. At most, I could see some changes to advertising, but deplatforming channels just doesn’t make any business sense.
It would appear that those channels are exclusive to Roku by choice. If you should decide to boycott Roku, I’d suggest contacting Other Worlds TV to request additional platforms.
I’d check to see if you can still return it.
Y’all seem to be treating this like Fox News bought them, but it seems Fox still owns a lot of things that would be antithetical to how that place is run.
I also would expect the current stuff to continue to exist. The most likely change would be to emphasize their own content more, not to drop content that might make people want to stop using the product.
I don’t see any benefit to them in dropping PBS, for example. It’s free content for them. And one big issue these TV streaming services have is not being able to afford keeping on enough content.
Well, I just wanted to watch broadcast TV in my brand new craft room, and you can’t buy dumb TVs anymore. I hadn’t gotten too far in the Roku-ness beyond YouTube, Pandora, and Corner Gas. I don’t know where the Corner Gas comes from…
I think some of the concern comes from not wanting to support the Fox company itself. Even if all the content remains the same, using the Roku platform will be financially supporting Fox. Fox will get revenue from advertising and the sale of data from the Roku platform just like Roku currently does now. And likely, Fox will use the Roku to promote it’s other content. That would be similar to the Amazon FireTV streaming device. FireTV has a lot of self promotion of Amazon products and services. I suspect the same thing will happen to the RokuFox device. I suspect they’ll cram it full of adverts for Fox content.
This, exactly. I boycott as much of Fox as I can, and I will continue to do so. I use my Roku device mostly as a gateway to stream other paid subscription services (PBS Passport, HBO Max, e.g.), so I doubt much will change for me. But when I replace the old TV, I’ll get another Samsung and have smart tee vee access to Samsung Plus.
There will not be a purge. And I will be specific: there will not be a purge within one year of the deal being complete. I’d extend it further, but you said “pretty soon”, and that’s just nonsense.