Gavin Baker

So Fox Corp said it's acquiring Roku in a deal valued around $25 billion.

So the Wall Street Journal is saying around.

Is 22 around?

Maybe.

making a major bet on the future of ad-supported streaming.

Ad-supported streaming, obviously.

Netflix pivoted to ads after saying, we're not going to do ads.

Turned out to be a great business.

Ads are undefeated.

Consumers are down with ads.

They're just down with ads, especially if they're good ads.

Anyway, the Fox, the deal.

The deal is Fox's largest to date.

It brings together a media company known for its live news and sports programming with the biggest provider of streaming platforms for connected TVs.

It will add scale to Fox's streaming business, currently home to free ad-supporting streaming service Tubi, which the company bought for $400 million in 2020 and subscription-based Fox One and Fox Nation.

Yes.

And all the metrics about actual audience size are huge.

And yeah, putting up, getting to tens of millions of dollars in revenue, hundreds of millions of dollars in ad sales against a big audience like the Tubi viewership, when you have the Fox machinery behind it, makes a ton of sense.

In addition to distributing other streaming services through connected TVs and devices, Roku has its own ad-supported Roku channel.

The combined company will better compete with the likes of Amazon.com and Netflix for ad dollars.