Roku users had to wait several months for Comcast and WBD to reach an agreement with the platform before Peacock and HBO Max were made available. Terms of the deal between Roku and the media companies weren’t revealed.

 

Roku feels it has a lot of leverage to negotiate favorable terms from ad-supported streaming services: The company is tied with Amazon’s Fire TV platform for market dominance in the United States. Collectively, Roku and Amazon Fire TV command 80 percent of the streaming TV market in the United States, according to data released by Parks Associates in October. Each company has an equal 40 percent share of the space, Parks Associates data revealed.

 

Like other media companies, executives at Disney have been pressured by investors to end its practice of losing money on content production and marketing for its direct-to-consumer streaming services. Historically, investors have been willing to wait as companies like Disney offered their streaming services at a low price point in order to attract the masses.