• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 30, 2026

Streaming distribution platform Roku decided to flip the script a year ago in August -- to offer a low-cost streaming platform with no advertising.

This seemed to turn the streaming business on its head. Many consumers are focused on low-cost streaming platforms, and those mostly come with ads to help keep the prices low.

It seems consumers are now looking at things differently.

Roku’s Howdy platform -- available through the Roku Channel -- costs $2.99 a month with no advertising for ad-free movies and TV shows.

Just eight months in, streaming subscription research company Antenna says Howdy has steadily grown to one million subscribers. And since starting up eight months ago, it has been steadily adding around 100,000 subscribers per month.

Better still, Antenna estimates 50% of those who signed up to Howdy in August and September 2025 were still with the service six months later.

Massive platform promotion on Roku has pushed the business -- so much so that 23% of all new subscribers coming to The Roku Channel for any streaming service (Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock, whatever) were with Howdy.

Roku has a big platform -- getting into 100 million streaming households. That’s a lot of scale.

And things could accelerate for Howdy. Last month, Roku made a distribution deal with Amazon Prime Video Channels for Howdy.

If you are wondering what's on this channel, for the most part, the content is library TV shows and movies from many studio libraries such as Warner Bros., Sony Television, Walt Disney and Lionsgate, among others.

Long-running shows are also on the platform, including “Longmire,” “Weeds,” “Unsolved Mysteries," “Nash Bridges,” “Growing Pains,” and “NewsRadio,” and “Growing Pains.” Movies include “Dirty Dancing,” “Edge of Tomorrow” and “Escape from New York.”

It's old-time content that many would say is "feel-good" and "comfortable" TV.

And apparently that description also defines its price tag.