When talking about the abysmal failure of Quibi and who might be interested in buying their content library (see: Apple, WarnerMedia and Facebook Reportedly Say No To Buying Quibi and After Quibi Finally Available To Cast To TV They Are Officially Shutting Down – A $2 Billion Dollar FAIL) Roku was never discussed as a possibility.
I was a little surprised to read recent stories that Roku was negotiating with Quibi, but it does make some sense for them, however they’re getting into a very crowded space. We’ll get into why this might be problematic after the jump.
Roku announced its acquisition of Quibi in a press release Friday. Quibi’s entire catalogue will now be exclusive to the Roku Channel, beginning later this year. The Roku Channel is a free, ad-supported streaming service available on the company’s hardware. Quibi used to cost $4.99 per month with ads, and $7.99 for an ad-free version, so Roku is offering a much better deal for basically the same content.
Nobody Wanted to Pay for Quibi When It Launched — Now Its Shows Are Streaming for Free on Roku
Roku has had the Roku Channel for quite some time, and they have not-so-quietly been expanding its offerings, adding live TV channels, expanding more into a free live TV with On Demand destination. They had ABC News live tv on their channel for some time and I’ve watched old Batman TV shows (see: 1966 Joker vs. 2019 Joker – Which Is Best?)
When we purchased a new 65″ smart TV recently for an absurdly low price of $238 at Walmart it came with Roku. This was our first Roku smart TV, but we’ve been using a Roku 3 since almost it came out. Great streaming device, clean menu, we are fans.
The Roku TV experience is very similar, but seems to put more emphasis on live TV as if that’s the audience they want to capture. The cord cutters. We cut the cord a long time ago, dropping Cable TV and satellite like a bad habit. Have you cut the cable yet or do you still enjoy watching live TV more traditionally? There are few, if any, popular live TV channels you can’t get through a streaming subscription or just flying an over the air antenna.
