The announcements are still coming in on the second day of NewFronts. Roku said today that it will expand its content catalog in order to appeal to lovers of lifestyle, culinary, home improvement, and reality television. The Roku Channel now boasts seven original shows starring culinary and lifestyle stars Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse, and Chris Kimball thanks to two new co-production arrangements with Marquee Brands and Milk Street Studios. The agreements will also add over 3,000 episodes of library content to the streamer’s existing large library of over 70,000 series.
Past seasons of “Martha Bakes,” “Martha Stewart’s Cooking School,” “Martha Stewart Living,” “Essence of Emeril,” “Emeril Live,” and “Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television” will be available for viewing during the memorial event. “Martha Cooks,” “Martha Holidays” (working title), “Martha Gardens,” “Emeril Cooks,” “Emeril Tailgates,” “Milk Street’s Cooking School,” and “Milk Street’s My Family Recipe” are among the new original programs coming to The Roku Channel.
In a statement, Roku’s vice president of programming, Rob Holmes, stated, we’re ecstatic to be able to provide free material from culinary and cultural heavyweights Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse, and Chris Kimball to our audience. The Roku Channel’s amazing reach, highly engaged user base, and profitable revenue model continue to make it a desirable destination for content partners and established talent looking to enhance their programs and connect with large streaming audiences.
Roku’s first-of-its-kind agreements with Marquee Brands and Milk Street Studios demonstrate our unique ability to deliver value throughout the streaming ecosystem. The Roku Channel reported a total of 20.9 billion hours streamed in its Q1 2022 financial report, up 14% over the previous quarter. These new agreements show Roku’s focus in providing free culinary and lifestyle programming to its users, as well as how the company intends to maintain membership growth.
Roku also announced that The Roku Channel will be getting even more original programming, including its first-ever Spanish-language food series “Delicioso,” home repair shows like “Honest Renovations” with Lizzie Mathis and Jessica Alba, and more. This new slate, according to Holmes, was hand-picked to appeal to the people that enjoy this sort of programming. “Amazing lifestyle shows, fresh reality and competitive formats that are created for the streaming generation.”
He then launched “To Paris for Enjoy: A Rom Com,” a new reality rom-com on The Roku Channel, claiming that streamers “love watching reality dating series – because who doesn’t?” Reality was a top competitor in streaming lists across platforms in 2021, according to Nielsen. FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) is pitching itself as a tempting choice for binge-watchers who want free entertainment at a time when major rivals (like Netflix) are fumbling the ball with content.
