Fox closes $22 billion Roku deal, creating No. 3 US TV business

Fox has completed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, giving the media giant direct access to more than 100 million streaming households and, by its own account, the third-largest television business in the U.S. by viewership. The deal, announced Friday, ranks among the biggest media transactions in recent years and lands far ahead of schedule — Fox originally projected closing in the first half of 2027.

That early finish is the detail practitioners should sit with. When the agreement was first announced in June, the companies themselves budgeted close to two years to get it done. Instead, the transaction cleared in a fraction of that window.

What does the deal change for the combined company?

Roku, founded in 2002, now sits formally under Fox ownership. Roku founder Anthony Wood framed the shift in terms of scale, not strategy. "We started Roku more than two decades ago to give people a better way to watch TV, and that mission doesn't change today. What does change is our reach and resources," Wood said in a statement. "Our teams will keep building and innovating as they always have, now with the support and capabilities of Fox behind us."

For Fox, the arithmetic is straightforward. Roku's platform reaches more than 100 million households — an installed base Fox could never have assembled organically in any comparable timeframe. Fox says it expects that audience to do three concrete things:

• Improve advertising targeting across the combined properties
• Strengthen Fox's position in the fast-growing connected TV market
• Reduce the company's reliance on traditional TV distribution

That third point matters most strategically. Linear distribution has been the structural drag on legacy media economics, and owning the pipe to 100 million-plus households loosens that dependency in one move.

How did the regulatory review play out?

The path to closing wasn't friction-free. Two months ago, the Justice Department issued a second request for information, asking both companies to hand over additional data and documents as part of its antitrust review. That step typically signals extended scrutiny and often kills deal timelines.

Reports earlier this month suggested U.S. regulatory approval was nearing. The Friday completion confirms it arrived — and that the second request didn't derail the transaction.

The so-what

For advertisers and streaming competitors, the market now contains a third-ranked U.S. television business by viewership with both premium content and a dominant distribution platform under one roof. Expect Fox to push harder on connected TV ad targeting in the coming quarters, and expect rivals to answer the question of who consolidates next.