Fox has completed its $22B acquisition of Roku, the streaming company, months after Department of Justice investigators probed the deal.
That is the extent of what is confirmed: a $22B price, a closed transaction, and an antitrust look that came first. The rest of this piece is analysis.
The deal matters because of what each company does. Fox makes and distributes content. Roku sits between viewers and the streaming services they watch, through its devices and TV software, and so controls the home screen where those services compete. Putting the two under one owner joins a content seller with a store shelf. The obvious worry for rivals is placement: which apps, channels and ads get prominent space, and on what terms.
A broadcaster owning a platform is not new. Comcast bought NBCUniversal years ago, and regulators attached conditions then. Walmart's purchase of TV maker Vizio showed that retailers want to own the screen interface too. What stands out here is the price and the target. Roku is a distribution layer that every streaming rival relies on, which is a more sensitive position than owning another content library.
A DOJ probe is not a block, and the deal closed. The more useful question is how Fox treats rival services on Roku devices, since that is where any competitive harm would first show up.