Fox Corporation is acquiring Roku, the streaming software that ships on most U.S. smart TVs and reaches more than 100 million households, in a $22 billion deal that hands the Murdoch family a new front in their rivalry with the Ellison led Paramount Skydance.
Fox Corporation said Monday it is acquiring Roku, the streaming software that ships on most U.S. smart TVs and reaches more than 100 million households, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $22 billion, the third major U.S. media consolidation in roughly a year and the first to put a rival distribution platform inside a broadcast family.
The joint announcement values Roku at $160.00 a share: $96 in cash plus 0.9693 shares of Fox stock, based on a 10-day average price. Both boards approved the deal unanimously. When it closes, subject to customary regulatory and shareholder approvals, existing Fox shareholders will own roughly 73% of the combined company and Roku shareholders roughly 27%.
The framing matters because the deal is not primarily a content acquisition. Fox already owns the sports rights, the news channel, and the free streaming service Tubi. What it is buying is the layer underneath the screen: the Roku operating system, the home screen that ships on most U.S. smart TVs, the audience data, and the ad-tech stack that monetizes them. Roku says its platform now reaches more than 100 million streaming households globally and more than half of U.S. broadband households, a footprint no other broadcaster can match.
By the companies' own description, the combined business would rank as the third-largest player in U.S. television by share of viewing, behind only YouTube and Netflix. Nielsen's Gauge data for March put streaming at roughly 48% of all U.S. TV viewing that month, as of March 2026, with broadcast at about 20% and cable at about 21%; The Roku Channel alone drew 3% of viewing, more than any other free streaming service, as Gizmodo noted in its coverage of the deal. Anchoring a broadcast and cable portfolio to that distribution layer is the bet Fox is making.
It is a bet that follows, and arguably answers, two other moves. In 2025, the Ellison family's Skydance merged with Paramount, creating Paramount Skydance, which owns CBS, Paramount Pictures, MTV, and Nickelodeon. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice gave Paramount Skydance a green light to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, putting HBO, CNN, and the Warner Bros. film and television library under the same roof, subject to remaining regulatory approvals. Fox's deal is the mirror image: where the Ellisons are consolidating content, the Murdochs are consolidating the pipe.
Roku will continue to operate as an open, partner-friendly platform with the same content relationships, the two companies said. The phrasing matters. Roku's pitch to publishers and advertisers has been that it is a neutral gatekeeper, not a competitor. Bringing it inside a company whose portfolio includes Fox News, the Big Ten, and FIFA World Cup rights gives that pitch a new test. Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood will take an operating role in the combined company, though the press release did not specify his title.
The financial structure is designed to keep the deal clean. Fox has $12 billion in committed bridge financing from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and expects pro forma net leverage of about 2.8 times, inclusive of half-credit for the roughly $400 million in annual run-rate cost synergies the companies project. The deal is expected to be accretive to free cash flow per share by the second full year after closing. Fox said it intends to maintain its investment-grade credit rating and continue its buyback and dividend programs through the close.
For the Murdochs, this is the largest streaming move of a years-long pivot. Fox sold most of its entertainment assets to Disney in 2019 and reoriented around live news and sports. It bought the free ad-supported streamer Tubi in 2020, a property Fox has called one of the most successful streaming businesses it has run, and launched Fox One, a paid streaming bundle, last year. Roku is the next, and biggest, step in that sequence, and the most direct challenge to date from the Murdochs to the Ellisons' media ambitions.
For American viewers, the consequences will be visible in two places regulators and competitors will be watching closely. The first is editorial concentration. Fox News sits inside Fox Corporation (Nasdaq: FOXA), while The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post sit inside News Corp (Nasdaq: NWSA), a separate Nasdaq-listed public company. Both entities are controlled by the Murdoch family. Adding a streaming platform that ships on most U.S. smart TVs sharpens the question of how much right-leaning editorial voice rests across the two corporate vehicles the family controls. The second is antitrust. The DOJ's posture on the Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery deal suggests the current administration is willing to clear large media mergers, but that deal still has other regulatory approvals to clear, and the Roku acquisition will require its own review.
What to watch next: whether the companies file their merger paperwork before or after the WBD transaction closes, how the FCC and state attorneys general frame the editorial-concentration question, and whether Roku's open-platform commitments are written into the deal's regulatory consent decree or left as a public-relations line. The next twelve months will determine which of the two family empires, the Murdochs or the Ellisons, ends up with the stronger claim on the screen that Americans actually turn on.