Roku has just acquired the brand This Old House–which includes the television show, magazine, website, and the entire backlog of episodes, which stretches back more than 40 years.
Roku has firmly planted it’s flag as a media company with this acquisition as well as their recent pickup of Quibi programming.
Roku is my favorite streaming device as I always liked that they were a third-party piece of hardware that wasn’t tied to one of the big-3 tech giants.
I was surprised to see Roku streaming a ton of This Old House content for free a few months ago, and now it all makes sense. This deal was probably in the works for quite some time, and knowing how forward-thinking CEO Eric Thorkilsen is, it was bound to happen at some point. Thorkilsen helped create Martha Stewart Omnimedia and he had the foresight to buy This Old House from Time Inc. when times were tough.
This Old House outgrew PBS years ago in regards to viewership potential, and Roku recognized that their platform was perfect for the brand to extend it’s reach. The majority of home improvement content is evergreen, which means it remains relevant and useful year after year, especially for a show as solid as This Old House.
Best practices in building and construction don’t change much, and the cast of contractors and hosts have always been the best in the business.
Full disclosure: I worked at This Old House for five years and there is no other home improvement programming or brand that even comes close to touching their quality and expertise.
Check out This Old House on Roku and all of their house project locations.
We hope to catch up with our friend Kevin O’Connor to get the real scoop, so stay tuned.
