Fox to Buy Roku for $22 Billion in TV-Streaming Merger Deal
Fox Corp. is making one of the biggest bets of its history, agreeing this week to buy Roku for $22 billion in a deal that merges old school broadcast power with the streaming platform sitting on top of more than 100 million television sets worldwide.
The agreement, announced Monday, has Fox paying $160 per share in a mix of cash and Fox Class A stock, an arrangement that gives Roku an enterprise value of about $22 billion. The combined company would become the third-largest player in U.S. television based on share of viewing, putting it in the same conversation as the biggest names in the business. Roku's platform reaches roughly 100 million households, and that figure includes more than half of all U.S. broadband households.
For Fox, this is a continuation of a years-long shift. The company has leaned heavily on live sports and news, including Fox News and broadcasts of NFL, MLB, and FIFA World Cup events, but it has lacked a major streaming foothold to match. Fox sold its entertainment assets to Disney in a $71 billion deal years ago, then picked up the streaming service Tubi in 2020 for $440 million as its answer to the streaming wars. Roku fills a different gap. It's the operating system many smart TVs run on, and it sits in front of viewers before they ever open Netflix or YouTube.
Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch called the acquisition a "defining moment" for the company, framing it as the next chapter of a strategy he's been building for nearly a decade. Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood will keep an ongoing role at the combined company and join Fox's board once the deal closes, and both companies say they're committed to keeping Roku an open, partner-friendly platform rather than folding it into a walled garden.
The numbers behind the deal are notable, too. Roku just posted its first full year of profitability in 2025, with net income of $88.4 million on revenue of $4.74 billion, up 15% year over year, and it closed March with $1.65 billion in cash and no debt. Fox, meanwhile, is taking on a $12 billion loan to help cover the cash portion of the purchase.
Once the deal closes, which both sides expect sometime in the first half of 2027, Fox shareholders are projected to own about 73% of the combined business, with Roku shareholders holding the remaining 27%, and the companies are pointing to roughly $400 million in expected cost savings.
Investors weren't immediately sold. Fox shares dropped as much as 18% the day the deal was announced, with some on Wall Street arguing the premium Fox is paying over Roku's recent stock price looks steep. Roku has spent years fighting for shelf space against giants like Amazon, Google, Samsung, and Apple, so the jury is still out on whether Fox got a smart deal or an expensive one.
Industry watchers see the logic regardless. Pairing Roku’s reach with Fox's live sports and news lineup gives the new combined company a foothold in both worlds, the broadcast audience that still tunes in for football and breaking news, and the streaming audience that increasingly lives inside apps like Roku's. The deal still needs to clear regulatory review, and with a close date over a year out, there's plenty of time for both sides to second guess the price tag.
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