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At CES 2026, Anthony Wood, Roku\u2019s founder, chairman, and CEO, offered a hint about the future of the company\u2019s newest streaming channel, Howdy, and its ambition to become a broader competitor in the market. Launched last August, the $2.99 per month streaming service offers ad-free access to library content, at a time when rival streamers are raising their prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opportunity for Howdy was \u2014 if you just look at what\u2019s going on in the streaming world with streaming services, they\u2019re getting more expensive. They keep raising prices, and they keep adding larger and larger ad loads,\u201d Wood explained at the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES. \u201cAnd so, the part of the market where it actually started \u2014 low-cost and no ads \u2014 is gone now. There\u2019s no streaming services that address that portion of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exec also suggested that Roku intends to bring Howdy to a broader market than just Roku customers, saying that while it started on Roku, the company \u201cwill take it off-platform as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to clarify offstage if that meant mobile apps, the web, and elsewhere, Wood told TechCrunch the company has not yet said where, specifically, it plans to bring Howdy, but that \u201cwe want to distribute it everywhere.\u201d\u00a0 That seems to suggest that Howdy could be an app that you one day load on any device, large or small. Wood declined to share subscriber numbers with TechCrunch, but said onstage, \u201cI think if I just look at the market, it\u2019s going to be a big streaming service.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n