Roku announced on Monday that it plans to add 23 new Quibi titles to its lineup of The Roku Channel “originals,” including four all-new premieres.
Beginning Aug. 13, the new shows will be available to stream in the U.S., Canada, and the UK, and will join the collection of 30 Quibi-produced shows that Roku added to its collection back in May. New additions include Eye Candy, a Josh Groban-hosted game show in which celebrities team up with civilians to attempt to identify hyperrealistic desserts, Squeaky Clean, a “first of its kind cleaning competition hosted by Leslie Jordan,” and also something called Skrrt With Offset, which could honestly be about anything.
The new shows will support Roku’s ad-driven content strategy, in which the company licenses content from other media companies and sells ads against it, generating the bulk of its revenue. Since its launch in May, Roku Originals has accounted for all five of the top streaming content slots on The Roku Channel this summer by active Roku accounts, the company said.
“While it’s only been a few months since the launch of Roku Originals, the response has been overwhelming,” Brian Tannenbaum, Roku’s head of alternative programming, said in a statement. “We’re excited to keep the drumbeat of premium series, featuring Hollywood’s top talent, available only on the Roku Channel with this next slate of original programming.”
In a note last week, Needham analysts wrote that The Roku Channel “continues to broaden its reach by growing niches,” and said that the new content buys “...should serve as a strong moat of product differentiation that may well lead to superior pricing power for Roku over time.”
“Total streaming hours doubled at [The Roku Channel] in 2Q21, driven by its flywheel of creating new Roku originals, which leads to more viewing hours, which attracts new advertisers, which drives higher ad revs, which Roku invests into new original content, etc.” the analysts wrote.
According to Nielsen’s streaming ratings for June, The Roku Channel was the No. 6 streaming channel by household reach in the U.S., coming in behind Disney+, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube and Netflix.