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Fox Solves Its 'Death of Cable' Problem by Buying the Modern Cable Box by David Dayen
I have been talking for years now about the death of cable, which has functionally arrived even if the cable networks don’t quite know it yet. The Pew Research Center estimates that cable and satellite TV households were down to only 36 percent of the population in 2025; that number was 85 percent just a decade earlier. Among viewers under 30, cable subscriptions are at 16 percent of households. Streaming represents nearly half of all viewing among all age groups. Cable is a dying medium, and it’s a matter of time before it’s no longer cost-efficient to maintain cable systems, and they are shut down. Charter Communications is trying to grow its way to survival with the acquisition of Cox, but even the biggest cable companies can’t outrun reality forever.
That represents an existential threat for cable networks already struggling with dramatic losses in advertising revenue (except for sports and news, which we’ll get to). Entertainment plays on cable are simply over, with all that value moving to streaming. If and when cable companies pack up the cords, the question becomes whether any cable stations will have a distribution home.
That’s what’s behind Fox’s $22 billion acquisition of Roku on Monday. The deal gives Fox’s cable stations—which after a sale to Disney are really only news and sports channels—a landing spot with Roku’s 100 million customers. It also combines two of the largest free streaming sites, Tubi and Roku TV, which have recreated the once-ubiquitous presence of rerun-heavy TV for a new generation. And it gives Fox a foothold in the sophisticated world of surveillance advertising, endlessly tracking the preferences of viewers and controlling their experiences.
Between this and Paramount’s proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which the U.S. Justice Department approved last Friday, the two most ideologically conservative media moguls in America are setting themselves up for the post-cable future by rolling up huge oligopolies, insulated from competition. Antitrust regulators in the states now have another instance of MAGA media consolidation to contend with.
That represents an existential threat for cable networks already struggling with dramatic losses in advertising revenue (except for sports and news, which we’ll get to). Entertainment plays on cable are simply over, with all that value moving to streaming. If and when cable companies pack up the cords, the question becomes whether any cable stations will have a distribution home.
That’s what’s behind Fox’s $22 billion acquisition of Roku on Monday. The deal gives Fox’s cable stations—which after a sale to Disney are really only news and sports channels—a landing spot with Roku’s 100 million customers. It also combines two of the largest free streaming sites, Tubi and Roku TV, which have recreated the once-ubiquitous presence of rerun-heavy TV for a new generation. And it gives Fox a foothold in the sophisticated world of surveillance advertising, endlessly tracking the preferences of viewers and controlling their experiences.
Between this and Paramount’s proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which the U.S. Justice Department approved last Friday, the two most ideologically conservative media moguls in America are setting themselves up for the post-cable future by rolling up huge oligopolies, insulated from competition. Antitrust regulators in the states now have another instance of MAGA media consolidation to contend with.
https://prospect.org/2026/06/16/fox-solves-death-of-cable-problem-by-buying-modern-cable-box-roku/