Roku Launches Howdy, A $2.99 Ad-free Streaming Service

Roku is launching an ad-free, subscription streaming work called Howdy. The work costs $2.99 per period and features a room of astir 10,000 hours of contented from its partners, including Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery, and FilmRise, alongside prime Roku Original titles.

The institution says subscribers will beryllium capable to watch titles for illustration “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Blind Side,” “Weeds,” and “Kids successful nan Hall,” arsenic good arsenic rom-coms, aesculapian dramas, ‘90s comedy, and nan like.

“Howdy is ad-free and designed to complement, not compete with, premium services,” said Roku laminitis and CEO, Anthony Wood, successful a press release.

The move comes 2 months aft Roku paid $185 cardinal to get Frndly TV, a streaming work that offers unrecorded TV, connected request video and cloud-based DVR.

Howdy joins nan company’s Roku Channel, its free, ad-supported (FAST) streaming service. A caller study recovered that The Roku Channel is nan astir popular FAST service, up of competitors Tubi and Pluto TV. More than 125 cardinal group usage nan level each day, Roku says.

A cardinal maturation driver for Howdy will beryllium Roku’s integrated scope — nan institution said earlier this twelvemonth that it had surpassed 90 million streaming households.

Roku past week reported its second-quarter financials, turning successful better-than-expected gross maturation of 15%, arsenic streaming hours connected nan level came successful astatine 35.4 billion, up 5.2 cardinal hours from a twelvemonth earlier.