Fox wants to take over your TV, and the tech inside it

Article excerpt

Fox is acquiring Roku for $22 billion, giving the media giant control over the streaming interface in more than 100 million homes worldwide. Roku's familiar purple menu, the gateway to Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, and hundreds of other apps, will ostensibly remain unchanged, but the deal hands Fox unprecedented insight into what people watch and when. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch promised investors the companies would operate independently, yet the economics are hard to ignore: Fox gains a direct line to viewer behavior data across competitors' platforms, a treasure trove for advertising and content decisions.