Parks: Fox-Roku deal highlights strategic value of TV operating systems
September 9, 2026 10.54 Europe/London By Julian Clover


Fox’s planned $22 billion acquisition of Roku underlines the growing strategic importance of TV operating systems and streaming platforms as the industry competes for control of the connected TV viewer.

Research from Parks Associates’ Tech Ecosystem Dashboard, based on surveys of more than 8,000 US internet households, found that 43% use a Roku device as their primary streaming media player, while 17% of smart TV owners say their main television runs Roku OS.

The proposed transaction would combine Fox’s portfolio of premium live content, including sports and news, with its Tubi streaming service, with Roku’s operating system, The Roku Channel, Frndly TV, advertising technology and first-party audience data.

Roku says its platform reaches more than 100 million streaming households globally.

The acquisition would also give Fox greater scale in FAST, combining Tubi with The Roku Channel, two of the leading US free ad-supported streaming services. Parks Associates ranked Tubi first and The Roku Channel second in its latest US FAST rankings, ahead of Pluto TV, Samsung TV+ and Xumo Play.

“The Fox and Roku combination brings greater control over how consumers access and discover content while expanding opportunities for viewer data, advertising, and distribution,” said Michael Goodman, Research Director at Parks Associates.

The proposed deal reflects a broader shift in the competitive dynamics of television. As content becomes increasingly fragmented across streaming services, control of the TV interface, operating system, discovery layer and advertising relationship is becoming as strategically important as ownership of individual content services.

For Fox, Roku would add a large-scale connected TV distribution and advertising platform to its existing content and streaming assets. For Roku, the deal would move the company from being primarily a platform and advertising business to becoming part of a much larger media group with significant ownership of premium content.