• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, July 12, 2023

The Roku Channel has expanded the distribution of its free, ad-supported service (FAST) to Google TV and Android TV. 

The six-year-old channel already reaches about 100 million people in the U.S. through Amazon Fire TV and Samsung TV interfaces. 

It offers more than 350 free, live linear TV channels with more than 80,000 programs and movies, spanning entertainment, sports, news and Spanish-language programming and Roku Originals like “Weird: The Al Yankovich Story,” which just received eight Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards nominations. 

According to 9to5 Google, Android TV OS – the underlying platform for both the Google TV and Android TV experiences – had 150 million monthly active devices as of January. But that does not equate to households, since many homes have more than one such device. 

In the same month, The Roku Channel became the third FAST to surpass a 1% share of streaming viewing time in the U.S., following Pluto TV and Tubi. 

The Roku Channel actually competes with Google TV, which in April integrated access to FASTs including Tubi, Plex and Haystack News into its Live tab. Added to more than 300 existing Pluto TV channels already there, and new built-in channels that can be watched without downloading an app, Google TV now enables browsing and accessing more than 800 free, live channels. The selection includes NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox news channels. 

As of this year, Roku also competes with Google with its own branded smart TVs. 

But in recent times, industry dynamics have made cooperation among rivals commonplace.