Roku adds a new addition to its original content strategy: the streaming platform acquired This Old House Ventures, the company behind the 42-year-old television brand for home improvement.
With the deal, the current seasons of “This Old House” (Season 42) and “Ask This Old House” (Season 19) are available for free on the Roku Channel as episodes on demand. New episodes will appear on the platform after being broadcast on local PBS stations.
Roku acquired all the business of This Old House Ventures in Stamford, which in Conn. Established. It gives Roku ownership of worldwide distribution rights and all subsidiary brands, including the TV shows “This Old House” and “Ask This Old House”, show libraries of more than 1,500 episodes, all digital assets and the company’s TV production studio in Concord , Mass In addition to the TV shows, the company also produces web, social, podcast and print content. (The Roku agreement does not include ‘New Yankee Workshop’.)
The terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. A source familiar with the deal said Roku was paying less than $ 100 million for This Old House Ventures, buying it from private equity firm TZP Group (which acquired it in 2016 from Time Inc.). The deal is joined by about 55 employees of This Old House Ventures at Roku, including CEO Dan Suratt and the team behind the performances.
The deal comes two months after Roku acquired rights to more than 75 original shows from Quibi, the current venture led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, and the hiring of at least five former Quibi staff members.
“As we grow, we’re looking at these additional opportunities to expand our offering – but we’re making sure it fits in with our ad-supported model,” Rob Holmes, Roku’s VP of programming, said in an interview. “These incremental content investments are in line with the scale and growth of the Roku Channel.”
The Old House Ventures’ Suratt said in a statement: “The passion of the craftsmen on ‘This Old House’ is only matched by its viewers, and we are proud to have helped them to their most valuable asset over the past four decades. to improve. – their house. Roku is not only the number 1 TV streaming platform in America, it also represents the future of TV, and we could not think of a better home for This Old House to grow and to continue its leadership position in the home improvement genre . ”
Select ‘This Old Home’ and ‘Ask This Old Home’ deliveries and offers are currently available on a wide range of digital platforms, including IMDb TV, PBS.org and the PBS app, NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Comcast’s Xumo, ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, Fox Corp. ‘s Tubi, Vizio Smart TVs and YouTube.
Holmes said Roku plans to continue distributing “This Old House” content widely. “We do not have to have it exclusively to offer us value,” he said.
“This Old House” first debuted in 1979. In 2020, according to Nielsen’s data, “This Old House” and “Ask This Old House” were the two best home improvement programs in the United States, and the shows garnered a total of 19 Emmy Awards and 102 Emmy nominations.
According to Holmes, Roku’s strategy of acquiring original content such as “This Old House” will complement the core programming on the Roku Channel, which features programs and movies from approximately 175 licensees. While VOD subscriptions constantly require exclusive content, we believe that ad-supported models like the Roku Channel thrive with content that is widely distributed across multiple platforms and services, ” he said.
Commenting on the Roku sale, Bill Hunscher, a TZP partner, said the firm was “proud to have been the manager of this amazing brand for the past five years.”
Hunscher and Harrison Davis led the deal for TZP. Lazard acted as sole financial advisor to This Old House Ventures on the sale and law firm Greenberg Traurig provided legal counsel. Hogan Lovells is legal counsel for Roku on the acquisition; the law firm also advised Roku on the Quibi deal.