Fox Corporation took ownership of Roku on November 6, 2026, putting a major connected-TV platform and Fox’s free streaming service Tubi under the same owner. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced the same day that it had closed its investigation. It disclosed four commitments by Fox covering how Roku carries and surfaces rival content and how the platform handles data from other providers. Fox separately confirmed the deal had closed in a securities filing.
Key facts
- Roku became a wholly owned Fox subsidiary on November 6. Fox had announced the proposed purchase in June at approximately $22 billion.
- Fox committed to carry non-Fox content for at least three years and to preserve existing contractual protections for sensitive rival data for at least three years.
- Fox also pledged to avoid discrimination in search results, preserve users’ ability to rearrange apps and keep offering data products to third parties on commercially reasonable terms.
- The Antitrust Division says it will continue to assess competition in the industry and may act if circumstances change.
Why the platform matters as much as the streaming service
Before the deal, Fox owned Tubi and Roku owned The Roku Channel. Both are free, advertising-supported streaming services. Roku also sells connected-TV devices and operates the platform through which viewers can open hundreds of streaming apps. The acquisition therefore changes two relationships at once. It brings the two ad-supported services under common ownership and makes the operator of the platform a corporate sibling of Tubi.
The Antitrust Division examined both relationships. It issued what it called second requests to both companies and looked at whether combining Tubi and The Roku Channel could harm competition among free services. It also examined whether Fox, once it controlled Roku’s platform, could use that position to put other content suppliers at a disadvantage. That second question concerns how a viewer reaches a service, even when the service remains available.
The division judged that new free streaming providers were likely to enter the market quickly enough to limit the risk from combining the services. On the platform question, it concluded that a broad catalogue helps Roku attract viewers and that degrading it could drive customers to other connected-TV platforms. That is the agency’s assessment of the merged company’s incentives. The four promises address the points where an app or content supplier could still depend on decisions by the platform.
What Fox’s commitments cover
The Justice Department statement describes commitments on access, discovery and data. It specifies a minimum term for two of them. The statement gives no term for the search, app-layout or data-product commitments.
| Area | Fox’s commitment | Minimum term stated |
|---|---|---|
| Carriage | Continue carrying non-Fox content in line with Roku’s historical practice | At least three years |
| Discovery and app layout | Avoid discrimination against non-Fox content in search and keep app layout configurable by users | Unspecified |
| Data products | Continue supplying third parties on commercially reasonable terms under Roku’s standard distribution arrangements | Unspecified |
| Sensitive partner data | Maintain existing contractual firewalls for competitively sensitive non-Fox content data | At least three years |
The distinction between carriage and discovery matters for viewers and for providers. A streaming service can stay available on Roku while its visibility depends on how the platform returns a search or displays apps. The search commitment concerns how rival content is treated in results. The home-screen commitment preserves a viewer’s ability to move apps around. It does not specify a default slot for any rival.
The two data commitments address different uses. One concerns continued third-party access to products Roku already offers under its distribution arrangements. The other concerns existing firewalls for commercially sensitive information, including data that can be inferred from how a rival’s content is used on Roku products. The division lists clicks, searches, views and voice data and includes both aggregated and non-aggregated information in its description. For a provider that distributes through Roku, the firewall commitment therefore addresses information generated by that distribution as well as information directly associated with the provider.
What changed at closing
Fox’s Form 8-K records two linked merger steps that left the surviving entity, Roku, LLC, wholly owned by Fox. It also spells out the consideration for eligible Roku shares. Holders are entitled to $95.30 in cash and 0.9799 of a Fox Class A share for each eligible Roku share. Fox expects to issue approximately 144.5 million Class A shares and pay approximately $14.1 billion in aggregate cash consideration to former Roku shareholders, excluding outstanding equity awards covered separately and dissenting shares. The cash figure is one component of the transaction value.
The filing establishes when Fox took ownership. The Justice Department’s statement describes what the new owner has promised to continue doing and leaves the division’s next intervention contingent on developments in the industry. It announces no date for a further review. For rival services on Roku, the first observable questions are whether viewers can still find and arrange their apps, and whether the platform continues to handle partner data under the arrangements described by the division.
