Roku, one of the leading Smart TV platforms, has acquired global rights for the majority of Quibi’s content portfolio of original programming, which includes more than 75 shows. The company has confirmed that the content will be available to stream for free in 2021 on the Roku Channel.
The company has said that more details about this will be revealed when it is “ready to share.” Roku has not revealed how much it paid to acquire the content. However, a source familiar of the development has claimed that the company is paying less than $100 million.
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. 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.”
Apart from the shows that were available on Quibi, more than a dozen shows will debut on the Roku Channel for first time. Those include “The Now,” a suicide-themed comedy from Peter Farrelly, and “Slugfest,” a docuseries based on the story of Marvel vs DC comics from the Russo brothers. Another evidently will be “Spielberg’s After Dark,” a horror series from Steven Spielberg.
For those who are unaware, Quibi had raised around $1.75 billion from companies like Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Sony, and more. The service was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a subscription cost of $5 and allowing mobile-only viewing. The concept failed to take off and the company decided to shut down the service just months after its launch.
