Roku paid less than $100 million to acquire short-form content from now-defunct streaming service Quibi, according to a report.
On Friday, Roku and Quibi said it had entered into an agreement for the streaming TV hardware maker to acquire around 75 shows from the now-defunct streaming service. The programs, many of which are 10 minutes in length or less, will be distributed globally on Roku’s ad-supported streaming service the Roku Channel.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Wall Street Journal said Roku paid less than $100 million for the content, with one source reportedly telling the newspaper the amount was “significantly less” than $100 million.
Quibi charged users around $5 a month to access its library of minutes-long shows via smartphone apps. Roku, on the other hand, will offer the shows via the Roku Channel for free.
The Roku Channel is available natively on Roku‘s line of streaming set-top boxes, streaming TV sticks and Roku TV line of Internet-connected TV sets built by TCL, Element, Hisense and other manufacturers. It is also available within the Roku apps for Apple’s iOS and Android phones and tablets, and is distributed on competing streaming TV platform Amazon Fire TV.
