In 2007, Netflix engineer Anthony Wood, whose earlier DVR company ReplayTV had lost to TiVo, built a Netflix streaming box called Project Griffin. Weeks before launch, Reed Hastings killed it, reasoning that Netflix hardware would push Apple, Sony and Microsoft to keep the Netflix app off their devices. The team was spun out as Roku in early 2008 and released the N1000 in May 2008 as a neutral platform for Amazon, Hulu and YouTube as well as Netflix. Early boxes could not search; until a May 2010 update, users added movies to their queue on a computer. Roku shrank to a streaming stick in 2012, added 4K in 2015, sold the $15 Roku LE at Walmart on Black Friday 2021 and moved to USB-C in its 11th generation in 2025.
From 2014 Roku licensed its Linux-based Roku OS to TV makers including TCL, Hisense, LG and Westinghouse; by January 2021 one in three smart TVs sold in the U.S. and Canada ran it, and by early 2025 it reached nearly 145 million people. Roku launched The Roku Channel in 2017, bought Quibi’s library for a reported $100 million in 2021, then in 2025 launched the $2.99 ad-free service Howdy and bought Frndly TV for $185 million. Fights over ad inventory kept Peacock and HBO Max off Roku in 2020, and in 2021 Roku pulled YouTube TV from its channel store. On June 15, 2026, Fox Corporation agreed to buy Roku for $22 billion, and in July Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats warned the Justice Department about the merger.
- Roku asked content partners for 30 percent of their advertising inventory plus a share of subscriptions billed through its platform.
- Google worked around the YouTube TV block by adding it to the main YouTube app before a multiyear deal in late 2021.
- In 2017 a court in Mexico banned Roku device sales after broadcaster Televisa complained about pirate channels.
- Roku shut down its open private channel system in 2022 and moved developers into a moderated beta program.
- In 2023 Roku partnered with Best Buy on televisions carrying the Roku name on the bezel.
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