Roku Announces Acquisition of Quibi’s Library of Original Content

Roku announced Friday that it is acquiring the rights to stream all of Quibi’s library of 75 original shows to its more than 50 million users.

After murmurs of a deal between between the two, Roku has made an official announcement revealing they acquired all of Quibi’s library of content, which features 75 premium shows and documentaries that Quibi created in conjunction with Hollywood’s leading studios and production companies, reads a WSJ report.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Roku is paying less than $100 million USD for the Quibi library, explains the WSJ. Rob Holmes, Roku’s VP of programming, said in an interview, “We do think this deal represents a great value.”

“Fundamentally, we think that Quibi has created great, high-quality content,” Holmes said. “It’s a great value proposition for our users… We’re pivoting from Quibi’s SVOD model to an ad-supported model, and this type of new, original content is not usually available for free.”

In addition to the full range of titles that’s already available on Quibi, more than a dozen new programs will make their exclusive debut on The Roku Channel in 2021.

Among the acquired content are what Quibi called “Movies in Chapters,” including Most Dangerous Game starring Liam Hemsworth, Flipped starring Will Forte and Kaitlyn Olson, and When the Streetlights Go On starring Chosen Jacobs.

Quibi had struggled to hit its subscriber growth targets during the global pandemic — the app shut down just six months after launch. Its high-profile founders Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg had touted it as a revolutionary new way to consume premium content on phones.

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