Roku Buys Quibi Content for $100 Million

Roku has purchased the content previously owned by failed streaming video startup Quibi for less than $100 million and will make it available to customers for free.

“We’re expanding The Roku Channel‘s library with shows from some of today’s biggest entertainers,” Roku’s Rob Holmes announced. “How, you ask? By bringing Quibi’s ground-breaking entertainment directly to The Roku Channel in 2021. The Roku Channel will soon be home to Emmy-nominated and popular shows, such as #FreeRayshawn, Chrissy’s Court, Die Hart, Dummy, Flipped, Most Dangerous Game, Punk’d, Reno 911!, Survive, and more.”

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

There aren’t many more details: All we know for sure is that all of the content from Quibi, which includes “quick bites and big stories,” will be available via the Roku Channel for free starting sometime in 2021. This includes “75 shows and hundreds of hours of entertainment.”

Quibi, of course, is most famous for its quick crash and burn after raising $1.75 billion from investors and launching in April 2020. It shut down officially in December, but it was dead long before that. The service threw away—sorry, “spent”—over $1 billion commissioning original content for its first year in business.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 7 comments

  • beckoningeagle

    Premium Member
    08 January, 2021 - 10:31 am

    <p>Wow! I never used it, but 100 million seems like a lot to me. Now I am interested. :-P</p>

  • sammyg

    08 January, 2021 - 12:11 pm

    <p>I have never heard of Quibi?</p>

    • pixymisa

      08 January, 2021 - 10:47 pm

      <p>Kind of the problem, yeah.</p>

  • dallasnorth40

    Premium Member
    08 January, 2021 - 2:21 pm

    <p>I watched "Most Dangerous Game" and it was outstanding.</p>

  • jgraebner

    Premium Member
    08 January, 2021 - 6:12 pm

    <p>I wonder if Roku will re-edit the shows into normal episode lengths. I watched a little bit of Quibi's content during the free trial period (mainly "Flipped", which was pretty funny) and one of my main reactions was that the 8-10 minute running time of the episodes didn't really work and that the content would have worked better in a more traditional format.</p><p><br></p><p>They did attract a lot of A-list talent, so there likely are some gems in their library.</p>

  • winbookxl2

    Premium Member
    08 January, 2021 - 8:19 pm

    <p>I enjoyed a few of the shows on Quibi. I was a paid subscriber and glad Roku will be the new home of these shows. </p>

  • StevenLayton

    09 January, 2021 - 4:55 am

    <p>I have a Roku streaming device, and I didn’t realise they had their own content! I just used it as a convenient way to access Disney, Amazon, Google, NowTV and Netflix from one box as we rotate between them.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC