Roku is apparently ready to produce its own original TV shows and movies to expand its free, ad-supported VOD business.
The company placed an ad in January looking for a ‘lead production lawyer’ to work on ‘expanding original content’. According to the mailing list, which was first reported by Protocol and no longer accepts applicants, Roku was looking for a lawyer with “extensive experience in television and film production at a studio, network, streaming service or entertainment company, ”as well as experience working with Hollywood guilds and unions. Reps to Roku did not respond to a request for comment.
Roku’s move to put together an original team comes after it reached an agreement in early January to acquire worldwide rights to more than 75 of Quibi’s original performances. Roku said it plans to stream it for free on the Roku Channel in 2021. The company paid ‘significantly’ less than $ 100 million in terms of the deal with Quibi, the well-funded startup led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, which folded six months after launch after not getting their traction.
‘We believe in this broader AVOD [ad-supported video-on-demand] trend, ”said Rob Holmes, VP of programming Variety in an interview last month. “At a very high level, we know that our users are engaged in free content in a very important way.”
Roku said it had 51.2 million active accounts in the fourth quarter of 2020, and that the Roku channel reached U.S. households with an estimated 61.8 million people in the fourth quarter.
Roku’s mailing list for a chief production attorney referred to the company’s original episodic productions, which include aspects of production transactions, including option purchase agreements and mini-dissertation acquisition agreements; agreements to appoint writers, actors, directors and individual producers; production services agreements; and below-the-line agreements, including for department heads, location agreements, clearance, props leases, exemptions and credit notes.
The mailing list also specified a minimum of eight years of “applicable legal experience” and “membership of the California Bar or the right to register as an in-house attorney in California.”