More sports, lifestyle shows could be headed to Roku Channel
More sports, lifestyle shows could be headed to Roku Channel
The streamer has to be targeted with its investments, but its growing viewership comes with the cost of needing to develop more programming.
The Roku Channel isn’t quite ready to step up to Netflix’s level. A content investment of $15 billion probably isn’t in the free streamer’s future, but that doesn’t mean it’s on the way to the poor house either. Roku now tallies 90 million streaming households, and offers both live content in the form of free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels as well as on-demand titles. The company is continuing to look at ways to expand its original content slate, even as it carefully considers where to spend its content dollars.
Key Details:
- Roku head of content David Eilenberg told The Hollywood Reporter that his streamer won’t participate in “shock and awe” spending.
- Eilenberg pointed to lifestyle and sports content as two areas where Roku could continue to invest.
- The Roku Channel streamed events from the 2025 X Games Aspen, and recently made a deal to acquire rights from the Pro Volleyball Federation.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Roku head of content David Eilenberg explained that The Roku Channel will continue to invest in original content, though it won’t try to compete with the giants in subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) streaming in that regard.
“We’ve been really clear from the beginning of our originals journey that we’re not participating in shock and awe spending wars with the SVODs,” he said. “That’s not a winning strategy for us.”
Instead, The Roku Channel will continue to try making shrewd content investments in programming segments that draw a large percentage of its viewers. Eilenberg pointed to titles like “The Great American Baking Show” — which has been a staple for the streamer for the past few years — and “The Rich Eisen Show” as examples of lifestyle and sports shows that Roku could continue to invest in.
“We’ve sharpened our originals focus into a few core categories that we’ve seen success with, and I think we’re gonna continue to sort of double down on those,” Eilenberg said. “Most notably those are lifestyle categories like food and home, and then programming around sports. There’s a whole host of reasons for that. I think we found an endemic viewership for those categories, and they are also categories that our advertisers feel comfortable with, so it serves two of our most important constituencies.”
On the sports side of things, The Roku Channel has made continued investments throughout 2024. The streamer acquired the Sunday Leadoff package of MLB games in May, and just this past weekend offered select events from the 2025 X Games Aspen. Earlier this month, The Roku Channel made a deal with the Pro Volleyball Federation to stream games from that league free as well.
Eilenberg also discussed the importance of working with other on-demand streaming services, instead of viewing them as nothing more than competitors. Viewers can subscribe to streamers like Apple TV+, Disney+, and many more through Roku, and its free streaming content can drive customers to sign up for more paid subscriptions, creating a symbiotic relationship for all concerned.
“In some way, everybody’s TV event is also our TV event,” he told THR, citing the example of NBC late-night shows putting segments on The Roku Channel once they’ve aired on TV. “If they then get people into Peacock, that is part of our ultimate goal as well, right? Is to be the home to whatever streaming app the user wants to find themselves with.”
The Roku Channel is a different type of streamer, with different goals than services like Netflix. It hit 2% of all TV viewed in the month of December, showing that its strategy of combining licensed, ad-supported content with its own originals and select live sports is continuing to draw more viewers to the service.
Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is a free, ad-supported streaming service that offers a broad mix of movies, TV shows, live linear channels, and original programming. Available to all viewers — not just Roku device owners — the service features licensed content from major studios alongside Roku Originals, which include exclusive series, movies, and specials previously produced for Quibi, as well as new original projects developed specifically for the platform.