Roku Acquires This Old House as Part of an Expansive Content Strategy

Roku is continuing its expansion into original and exclusive content, this time acquiring the television program This Old House and all of its subsidiary brands from TZP Group. The purchase includes the programs This Old House and Ask This Old House, as well as the accompanying show libraries, digital assets and TV production studio. Overall, the library acquisition adds 1,500 episodes to the Roku Channel. The past seasons of both series were already available for free on the Roku Channel. Now, current seasons are available as on-demand episodes the day after they air on local PBS stations. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The executive team behind This Old House will join Roku—including CEO Dan Suratt—and the team will continue to create new content. Streaming With the Enemy: How Connected TV Rivals Learned to Work Together Roku more than doubled its reach in 2020 Roku's This Old House acquisition comes on the heels of other recent Roku deals adding exclusive programming to its platform, most notably its recent decision to buy exclusive global streaming rights to content from shuttered short-form streamer Quibi. The Roku Channel more than doubled its reach in 2020 with nearly 200 channels, reaching an estimated 63 million people. “We’ve been talking about the opportunity for the Roku Channel, given this growth, to be more creative and expansive in our content sourcing strategies,” Rob Holmes, vp of programming for Roku, told reporters following Friday’s announcement. “Our primary content strategy has been to license and distribute content. As the channel has grown, we've been able to expand and get more creative with our content strategy overall, but in a way that's consistent with our ad supported business model.” Holmes said that Roku now has over 175 content partners. He also said the company is trying to think differently about AVOD content (ad-supported streaming) and how it differs from SVOD (streaming video-on-demand) providers like Netflix. "SVOD almost requires exclusive original content, new stuff every month, something to attract a subscriber and then retain them to justify that subscription,” said Holmes. The acquisition also provides opportunities for advertisers to get involved with AVOD content. “There’s a model of advertisers partnering with the show already,” including Bradley GMC and Home Depot, said Holmes. “We think the combination of the leading show in the home improvement category, plus the No. 1 one TV streaming platform in America is going to be really compelling to advertisers." Expanding AVOD programming This is the latest example of Roku's efforts to expand its ad-supported programing, particularly in the lifestyle genre. Holmes described lifestyle programming as a “great example of the first bucket of AVOD content,” noting that consumers are “very happy” to watch it. “There's an opportunity to do more in this category that we know people spend a lot of time with, and advertisers are really excited about,” said Holmes. “And This Old House is a great foundation to do more of that.” In January, Roku snagged the exclusive global streaming rights from Quibi, including more than 75 scripted originals, alternative reality series and short documentaries. While the content isn’t yet available on the platform, Roku will also premiere more than a dozen new programs that Quibi produced, but is still waiting to premiere. Last Friday, Roku had its first exclusive premiere series on the Roku Channel with Cypher, also a licensed title. “It just points to some of the sort of ways that we can overall scale our content in creative ways as we continue to grow,” said Holmes. As Roku continues to beef up AVOD content on the Roku Channel, it’s also scaling distribution for the channel at large. In October, the Roku Channel arrived on rival Amazon Fire TV, which reaches more than 50 million monthly active users. Competitors like Roku and Amazon Fire TV are recognizing the value of scale for their content channels. AVOD content benefits from a broad distribution model across multiple platforms, rather than exclusivity, as platforms can sell some of the publisher’s inventory in exchange for extended audience reach. Amazon Adds More Fire TV Inventory to its Ad-Tech Stack