California based digital media firm Roku, Inc. has recently announced that the company would now allow its users to stream and watch ‘Roku Channel’ content from its mobile app. Roku also stated that viewers would be allowed to purchase subscriptions to Showtime, Starz, as well as 23 other premium content providers in the Roku Channel app on the company’s television sets.
Apparently, the Roku Channel is a crucial part of the platform business of Roku, which is a rapidly growing segment for the firm that now accounts for over half of the total revenue. Earlier, this channel had seemingly focused on ad-supported content but would now let users buy premium subscriptions and watch them via Roku Channel interface.
Vice President of programming for Roku, Inc., Robert Holmes, mentioned that while the cord-cutters could subscribe to premium channels via Hulu, Prime Video of Amazon Inc., and other services, the iteration of Roku delivers a considerably easier sign-up experience as users do not need to have a paid account with any other streaming provider for buying channels. It is valuable to have all of it at one place.
The company has offered an app for device management for a long time, however, it would now bring the ability of watching Roku Channel content to mobile devices of the users. According to Holmes, this move would bring more value to Roku’s platform for customers that are already engaged w this platform.
Purportedly, Roku had announced in August that the company would bring Roku Channel to the web for users so that they do not have to be watching a physical television set on their couches to be able to view Roku’s content. The company is working on integrating the Roku Channel into the daily routines of the users, as viewers may not buy Roku-powered smart TVs or streaming sticks forever.