Closes

Fox Corporation has completed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, transforming the Murdoch family’s company into a major player in the streaming video business.

The deal closed Friday, months ahead of the companies’ original target of the first half of 2027.

The deal combines Fox’s news, sports and broadcast channels with the San Jose-based streaming platform, which reaches 100 million households globally. The $22 billion valuation includes debt.

Roku, founded in 2002, provides Fox with a direct line to consumer households at a time when the traditional pay-TV universe continues its slow decline as viewers move away from cable and satellite services to video streaming. Fox already owns the free ad-supported streaming service Tubi, which turned profitable last year.

Fox Corp. expects to see around $400 million in cost reductions within two years of the Roku acquisition.

While Roku provides Fox with an opportunity to be more aggressive in marketing its channels, Fox has pledged that the platform will remain open to distributing content from competitors.

“Beginning today, our top priority for the combined company is to continue to relentlessly serve audiences and partners, while reinforcing the openness and choice that is the essence of the Roku platform,” Fox Executive Chair and Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. “Our shared entrepreneurial passion and clear conviction toward building the future together with our new Roku colleagues gives us great confidence in the opportunities ahead of us.”

Roku founder Anthony Wood will join the Fox board of directors. He will also serve as co-chair of Fox Digital Platforms, the newly formed division that includes Roku, Tubi, the direct-to-consumer streaming service Fox One and Red Seat Ventures, which provides sales and technical support to podcasters. Paul Cheesbrough, who oversaw Tubi for Fox, will become co-chair and chief executive of the division.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Roku stockholders are entitled to receive $95.30 in cash and 0.9799 shares of Fox Class A common stock for each share of Roku Class A and Roku Class B common stock they owned immediately prior to closing. As a result of the transaction, Fox stockholders own around 74% of the outstanding shares of Fox common stock and former Roku stockholders own approximately 26%.

Roku shares stopped trading on the Nasdaq Friday.

Victims’ groups, however, have denounced the ruling as ‘selective’ justice that exonerates a former government head.

A Mexican judge has closed the case against Francisco Garduno, former head of the country’s immigration agency, for crimes related to the 2023 fire at a Ciudad Juarez detention centre that killed 40 migrants and injured 30 others.

The incident was the deadliest event ever to occur at a Mexican immigration centre, and critics said it exposed the shortcomings and irregularities in the country’s detention system.

Garduno faced trial for the crimes of abuse of public office and dereliction of duty after footage from the fire showed guards had failed to respond to cries for help.

On Tuesday, Judge Victor Manlio Hernandez Calderon ruled that Garduno had fulfilled the court-mandated measures required to address the damage. But victims rejected that decision and announced they would appeal.

“Yesterday, corruption and the impunity of politicians protected by power won again,” the Foundation for Justice, one of the NGOs representing some of the victims, wrote on social media on Wednesday.

The victims have also compared the judge’s decision to close the criminal case to a de facto exoneration for Garduno.

In their view, the ruling “confirms that justice in Mexico is selective” and denies the victims “full reparations” and concrete guarantees that such an event will not be repeated.

Miguel Zenteno, one of the foundation’s lawyers, noted that the ruling is not yet final because it will be appealed and because another injunction is pending against the court-mandated reparations, which critics say failed to meet the standards for serious events.

On March 27, 2023, some 70 men were crammed into a locked dormitory with no ventilation and barely any water at the Ciudad Juarez immigration detention centre, on the border with El Paso, Texas.

As night fell, a small group set fire to some mattresses in protest, and within seconds, smoke engulfed the entire area.

Security cameras recorded the guards leaving the area despite cries for help. They made no attempt to open the gates of the dormitory. Only the women, held in another cell, were released. Most of the victims were Central Americans and Venezuelans.

Garduno, a former prison guard and current official at the Ministry of Education, led the National Migration Institute (INM) starting in 2019 and continued in the role until 2025 despite the fire.

The judge had previously ordered Garduno to compensate the families, provide them with free specialised medical care, issue a public apology, provide human rights training to migration personnel and guarantee that the events would not be repeated.

Zenteno acknowledged that the measures were implemented only partially because Garduno did not pay the damages as stipulated by the legal process.

Instead, Zenteno pointed out that the funds came from the INM, and the payments did not fully compensate the families. Furthermore, he added, the victims were not even informed how to access free medical services, and the apology “was a mere formality, not substantive”.

In addition to Garduno, prosecutors accused another former director of the institute of the same crimes.

Six immigration agents – including a military officer and a private security guard – and the two migrants accused of starting the fire are charged with homicide and assault. Most of the officials remain free pending trial.