It’s time to take the Roku Channel’s original content seriously

Not long ago, few people were even aware that streaming TV juggernaut Roku had begun dabbling in the original content space. Then things got weird.



In November 2022, the Roku Channel released its mock biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe, and millions of viewers around the world tuned in. It was an unofficial coming-out party for the streamer as a player with its own brand of programming. The film, which went on to win an Emmy earlier this year for Outstanding Television Movie, drove more people with a Roku account to its namesake channel than on any previous day in its history, possibly while wondering, “Wait, is Roku putting out original movies and shows now?”



As the Roku Channel drops its next major comedic project on March 8—Chelsea Peretti’s star-studded First-Time Female Director, which sends up the world of live theater with some help from Megan Mullally and Amy Poehler—there should no longer be any confusion.









The Roku Channel has been around since 2017, originally only on Roku devices before broadening out online and on cable with its current free, ad-supported model. The streamer offers thousands of movies and TV shows through licensing deals with studios including Paramount, MGM, and Sony; sports programming through partnerships with the big leagues; along with live linear TV and news via access to other FAST (free ad-support television) channels. The streamer’s push for originals, though, only began in early 2021, with a windfall of fresh content.



Following the spectacular, embarrassingly quick downfall of Quibi in 2020, executives at the Roku Channel saw an incredible opportunity. An abundant wellspring of high-quality, practically new content had become available all at once, from a motivated seller, and they might be able to get it for a relative pittance. Roku ended up paying “significantly less than $100 million” for the Quibi library: more than 75 shows featuring stars such as Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, and Idris Elba. It was an ideal way to acclimate audiences to the notion that Roku might be providing them with original content going forward. It also gave new life to the Quibi shows, according to Roku head of content, David Eilenberg, who arrived only after the acquisition.



“What Roku was able to offer that content, and part of our pitch to the creative community overall, is that we have massive distribution,” Eilenberg says. “One of the pleasures of programming for Roku is you are built into 80 million households, where the home screen of the TV is running on our operating system, and that gives you such a huge opportunity as a programmer to reach mass audiences without expending massive internal marketing costs.”



Although other channels sometimes pay for real estate on that home screen to market their content—and brands sometimes pony up just to advertise on its screensaver—the Roku Channel can use it for its own shows and films at any time, to ensure they get their spotlight moment. That pitch soon proved attractive when the streamer embarked on a true commissioning strategy to find scripted and unscripted originals.



Roku made an early calculation that food and home renovation programming would catch the attention of its menu-scrollers. The team set up cooking shows with Emeril LaGasse and Martha Stewart, sprang for the entire This Old House media empire, and set up a new season of The Great American Baking Show, hosted by Ellie Kemper and Severance star Zach Cherry. These shows did indeed help draw in viewers, but in order to fully establish the Roku Channel as a new home for original content, it would need a true brand differentiator: a conversation piece.



Weird: The Al Yankovic Story began as a fake trailer on Funny or Die back in 2010. By the time Yankovic and his cowriter Eric Appel were ready to pitch a full-length version, Roku already had a fairly long-standing relationship with Funny or Die, having worked together on a branded content studio which Roku now owns. When Funny or Die and production company Tango pitched a feature that would take a Weird Al-style parody approach to the mockumentary genre, the Roku Channel went all in. Even the company’s messaging around the project took on a fun, winking tone. “There clearly aren’t enough biopic movies about famous musicians, and we were excited to shine a light on the incredibly true, unexaggerated story of Weird Al,” Roku’s head of original scripted programming Colin Davis said in an announcement notice.









The film eventually premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022, and broke viewing records for the Roku Channel upon its November streaming release.



“That was definitely a watershed moment for our Roku Originals,” Eilenberg says. “We have many other franchises at this point serving audiences on a regular basis, but that was a step-change for us in terms of our place in the world of originals and in terms of what Roku can do.”



With the wind at its back, the Roku Channel went on a programming blitz in the year after Weird. It expanded on a partnership with Kevin Hart that began with the Quibi series, Die Hart—greenlighting a third season of that show and bringing over Kevin Hart’s Muscle Car Crew from MotorTrend TV. It produced Side Hustlers, a business-centric reality show starring Ashley Graham and entrepreneur Emma Grede, which made such a splash in its March 1 opening weekend, it’s already been renewed for a second season. And the streamer also recently ordered upcoming projects from marquee names Jennifer Lopez and John Cena, along with singer Charlie Puth.



Members of the original content team have also lately become fixtures on the festival circuit, scouting for whichever hot project might drive the cultural conversation in Roku’s direction. It was at the Tribeca Film Festival last summer that the team caught wind of First-Time Female Director. A quirky tribute to the magic (and just plain ick) of live theater, Chelsea Peretti’s filmmaking debut stars Megan Mullally, Kate Berlant, Andy Richter, and coproducer Amy Poehler. Although other original films have debuted on the streamer in the past year, this is the first one that feels like a proper follow-up to Weird.



As the Roku Channel selectively continues its Quibi-tested tactic of scooping up canceled shows, like the Nasim Pedrad comedy, Chad and Disney+’s Spiderwick Chronicles, it’s also looking ahead to the future. The streamer was the exclusive partner of MrBeast’s FAST channel last fall, which portends further digital native content migrating to connected TV in the years to come. The Roku Channel’s tech team is also exploring the possibility of creating original shoppable content, after Roku teamed with Walmart for last December’s shoppable branded series, Add to Heart.



“We’re new and therefore giving ourselves the freedom to experiment a bit,” Eilenberg says.



It remains to be seen whether Roku’s recent stock stumble, following Walmart’s acquisition of smart TV-maker Vizio, will slow its signature streamer’s momentum. All its recent moves, however, have helped the Roku Channel quietly become, according to Nielsen’s Gauge, one of the top 10 streaming services in the U.S. across the board. It is now competitive with streamers such as Max and Paramount+ in terms of reach. As for original content, at the very least, its approach in the past couple years has ensured that when viewers now discover that a buzzy film such as First-Time Female Director is a Roku Original, it doesn’t seem weird at all.