Roku wants to make it easier for publishers to get their content onto its streaming boxes, and in turn ramp up its own advertising business. The company announced a new Direct Publisher tool Wednesday that allows publishers to get their own channel on Roku devices without writing any code at all.
Publishers simply supply Roku with a fee for their content to get started. Roku then automatically builds a channel, and also takes over ad sales for the channel. Roku is sharing ad revenue with publishers with a 60:40 split.
The company will also include content from channels generated this way in its universal search starting next week. Some of the publishers taking advantage of this new tool include Mashable, Rolling Stone, Turner’s Super Deluxe and US Weekly.
There has long been a cottage industry around connected devices, with companies generating white-labeled apps for publishers by the hundreds. It makes a lot of sense for Roku to cut out these middle men and offer these tools to publishers directly, especially since it will help Roku to sell even more advertising.
Roku completely revamped its device line-up last month, and for the first time introduced a streaming device that retails for just $30. With hardware selling for that little, it’s ever more important for the company to pursue other revenue streams. Roku said Wednesday that ad-supported channels now account for half of its 250 most-popular channels.
