Fox wants to take over your TV — and the tech inside it
Fox wants to take over your TV — and the tech inside it
福克斯想要接管你的电视——以及电视背后的技术
Fox is about to take over the TVs in more than 100 million homes worldwide. On Monday, Fox announced that it’s acquiring Roku, the streaming middleman that serves as a portal for viewers to hop into services like Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, and more. The $22 billion deal may not change Roku’s familiar purple interface, but it could put Fox in control of your data behind the screen.
福克斯即将接管全球超过 1 亿家庭的电视。周一，福克斯宣布将收购流媒体中间商 Roku。Roku 是观众进入 Netflix、Disney Plus、Hulu 等服务的门户。这笔 220 亿美元的交易或许不会改变 Roku 熟悉的紫色界面，但它可能让福克斯掌握屏幕背后的用户数据。
During a call with investors, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said the plan is to keep the two companies separate. Fox aims to grow its business by adding Fox Sports, news content, and local stations to Roku — one of the most popular streaming device and smart TV platforms. “I would expect that we can grow our viewership in the US with a combination of Roku technology, Roku’s platform, the tremendous content that’s on the Roku channel, and the content that Fox brings to it as well,” Murdoch said.
在与投资者的电话会议中，福克斯首席执行官拉克兰·默多克（Lachlan Murdoch）表示，计划将两家公司保持独立运营。福克斯旨在通过将福克斯体育（Fox Sports）、新闻内容和地方电视台整合到 Roku（最受欢迎的流媒体设备和智能电视平台之一）中来拓展业务。默多克说：“我预计，通过结合 Roku 的技术、Roku 的平台、Roku 频道上的海量内容，以及福克斯带来的内容，我们能够扩大在美国的收视群体。”
Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood, who will have a role at the combined company after the deal closes in 2027, echoed this idea, saying that the streaming platform would feature Fox content on its homescreen, which currently shows a large marquee ad, along with a carousel filled with suggested shows and movies. “Most items on the homescreen are personalized in the sense that we decide what to show a customer based on what they’re most likely to watch, what they’re most likely to buy,” Wood told investors. “Having more properties that generate more revenue — and being able to decide when to promote them and when not to promote them — will result in overall more revenue being generated by the homescreen.”
Roku 创始人兼首席执行官安东尼·伍德（Anthony Wood）在 2027 年交易完成后将在合并后的公司担任职务。他对此表示赞同，并称该流媒体平台将在主屏幕上展示福克斯的内容。目前该主屏幕显示着一个大型广告横幅，以及一个包含推荐节目和电影的轮播栏。伍德告诉投资者：“主屏幕上的大多数项目都是个性化的，我们根据客户最可能观看和最可能购买的内容来决定展示什么。拥有更多能产生收入的资产，并能够决定何时推广它们，将使主屏幕整体产生更多收入。”
“Fox is getting a lot in terms of this deal” “福克斯在这笔交易中获益良多”
The multibillion-dollar deal may not result in an obvious branding change for Roku, but it may raise alarm bells for the people paying attention to the recent wave of media acquisitions that have put the Trump-friendly Ellison family in charge of Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, CBS News, and, to an extent, TikTok. Lachlan Murdoch, who took the reins of Fox and its Trump-aligned news network last year, also owns The Wall Street Journal parent company News Corp.
这笔数十亿美元的交易可能不会导致 Roku 的品牌形象发生明显变化，但对于那些关注近期媒体收购浪潮的人来说，这可能会敲响警钟。最近的收购浪潮已使亲特朗普的埃里森（Ellison）家族掌控了华纳兄弟探索公司（Warner Bros. Discovery）、派拉蒙（Paramount）、哥伦比亚广播公司新闻部（CBS News），并在一定程度上影响了 TikTok。去年接管福克斯及其亲特朗普新闻网络的拉克兰·默多克，同时也是《华尔街日报》母公司新闻集团（News Corp）的所有者。
“In the Trump era, these deals have huge political implications that really need to be focused on,” Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit digital rights and consumer protection organization, tells The Verge. “Perhaps people will get the message that this is not just a media deal, this is the further political alignment of US media assets into MAGA-friendly hands.”
数字民主中心（Center for Digital Democracy，一家非营利性数字权利和消费者保护组织）执行董事杰夫·切斯特（Jeff Chester）告诉《The Verge》：“在特朗普时代，这些交易具有巨大的政治影响，确实需要引起关注。也许人们会意识到，这不仅仅是一笔媒体交易，这是美国媒体资产进一步向‘让美国再次伟大’（MAGA）阵营靠拢的政治结盟。”
Though Roku is known for its fleet of streaming sticks and affordable TVs, it makes most of its money by selling ads across its platform and the commission it earns when people sign up for a premium streaming service through its interface. In April, Roku offered a breakdown of how much it earns from both segments for the first time. It reported earning $613 million from advertising, while subscriptions raked in $519 million during the quarter. “Fox is getting a lot in terms of this deal, as far as distribution goes,” Dan Rayburn, a streaming media analyst, tells The Verge, adding that Fox will also gain “insight into all the data on what people are watching.”
尽管 Roku 以其流媒体电视棒和经济实惠的电视产品而闻名，但其大部分收入来自平台广告销售，以及用户通过其界面注册高级流媒体服务时赚取的佣金。今年 4 月，Roku 首次披露了这两个部分的收入明细。报告显示，该季度广告收入为 6.13 亿美元，订阅收入为 5.19 亿美元。流媒体媒体分析师丹·雷伯恩（Dan Rayburn）告诉《The Verge》：“就分发渠道而言，福克斯在这笔交易中获益良多。”他补充说，福克斯还将获得“对人们观看内容的所有数据的洞察”。
Roku offers a limited amount of original content through The Roku Channel, its free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) service, which directly competes with Fox’s own FAST service, Tubi. Despite the similarities between both services, Murdoch told investors that one-third of Tubi viewers overlap with the people watching The Roku Channel. “Bring the two of them together, [and it] effectively triples the reach of the combined service,” Murdoch said. “It’s too early to say, but our expectation is fully to keep the services separate. They serve consumers or viewers in different ways.”
Roku 通过其免费广告支持流媒体（FAST）服务“Roku 频道”提供有限的原创内容，该服务直接与福克斯旗下的 FAST 服务 Tubi 竞争。尽管两项服务有相似之处，但默多克告诉投资者，三分之一的 Tubi 观众与 Roku 频道的观众重叠。默多克表示：“将两者结合起来，实际上使合并后的服务覆盖范围扩大了三倍。现在下结论还为时过早，但我们的预期是完全保持这两项服务独立。它们以不同的方式服务于消费者或观众。”
Roku has begun dabbling in paid subscriptions, too, with the acquisition of the $6.99-per-month Frndly streaming service, followed by the launch of Howdy, an even cheaper $2.99-per-month ad-free streaming subscription. Meanwhile, Fox recently launched its own Fox One streaming service and also has a deal with Hulu to air shows like Family Guy and The Masked Singer on the platform. With this deal, Roku could gain access to premium content to put inside its services.
Roku 也已开始涉足付费订阅领域，收购了每月 6.99 美元的 Frndly 流媒体服务，随后推出了更便宜的每月 2.99 美元的无广告流媒体订阅服务 Howdy。与此同时，福克斯最近推出了自己的 Fox One 流媒体服务，并与 Hulu 达成协议，在平台上播放《恶搞之家》（Family Guy）和《蒙面歌王》（The Masked Singer）等节目。通过这笔交易，Roku 可以获得优质内容并将其整合到自己的服务中。
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Roku is now like, ‘Okay, well, now let’s go look at some content we think worked great for our platform, and we have the backing to do it,”’ Rayburn says.
雷伯恩表示：“如果 Roku 现在说‘好吧，现在让我们去看看我们认为在平台上表现出色的内容，而且我们有资金支持去这样做’，我一点也不会感到惊讶。”
As we saw with Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox may not see much pushback from federal regulators. “In the US … I don’t think there’ll be any regulatory review,” Rayburn says, while casting doubt on an inquiry from the European Union, where Roku and Fox have a smaller footprint. That hands-off approach from regulators could pave the way for the deal to close next year.
正如我们在派拉蒙收购华纳兄弟探索公司时所看到的那样，福克斯可能不会受到联邦监管机构的太多阻力。雷伯恩说：“在美国……我认为不会有任何监管审查。”但他对欧盟的调查表示怀疑，因为 Roku 和福克斯在欧洲的市场份额较小。监管机构这种不干预的态度可能会为该交易在明年完成铺平道路。