Roku’s home screen ad experiment crosses the line

Roku has sunk to a new low in the streaming wars, with an experimental ad format that blocks your home screen behind an auto-playing video ad.

Roku players recently started playing a trailer for Moana 2 instead of loading the home screen they were turned on. While Roku says the ad is just a test, and that users could manually dismiss the ad instead of watching the whole thing, it still represents a new obstacle to basic control over your device. (Reddit users initiated the backlash, as spotted by Ars Technica.)

Roku isn’t alone in seeing what kinds of advertising annoyances it can get away with, but it’s crossed a line by putting an ad wall in front of its home screen and requiring extra clicks to get rid of it. Test or not, it’s a disappointing sign of what’s to come.

Roku’s response

Here is Roku’s official statement about the ads:

“Roku delivers the best value and experience for our 90M and growing TV streaming households. This has and will always require continuous testing and innovation across design, navigation, content, and our first-rate advertising products. Our recent test is just the latest example, as we explore new ways to showcase brands and programming while still providing a delightful and simple user experience.”

And here’s the context behind that statement: Despite being in 90 million homes, Roku still loses money every year. The company is trying to turn a profit by the end of 2026, which means it needs to add more users while also making more money from each one.

Roku executives have repeatedly pointed to the home screen as a path to the latter goal. In its latest earning call, CEO Anthony Wood referred to the home screen as “a key asset” for the company, adding that “making better use of the assets is a big part of our strategy to grow platform revenue.”

If we view the Roku home screen not primarily as a way to help users navigate their streaming content, but rather as a way to show more ads and sell more subscriptions, this once-sacred ground for Roku will naturally become more annoying over time.

Boiling the frog

Roku has been moving in this direction for a while now. Last year, it brought video to the large banner ad on the right-hand side of the app grid. It also put a new ad in the left-hand sidebar, leaving less room for menu items, and it’s been giving brands such as McDonald’s more space in its default screensaver. A row of content recommendations now appears in the app grid as well, with Wood noting those are intended to “drive more monetization.”

Still, other streaming platforms have gotten even more aggressive. Google TV and Amazon Fire TV have used the top carousel of their respective home screens to advertise earbuds and chicken tenders, and Amazon inserts full-screen ads into its screensaver mode. Last year, Amazon took things a step further, with auto-playing video ads that take over the entire Fire TV screen at power-on unless you immediately scroll downwards.

Roku can no longer resist mucking up its own home screen in response. As Wood told investors, the Roku home screen is what half of U.S. broadband customers see when they turn on their TVs. “We are making better use of our home screen to drive more engagement and to drive more subscriptions and to drive more ad revenue,” he said.

So here we are, with Roku testing full-screen ads that block immediate access to your device unless you proactively dismiss them. This is a failure of imagination on Roku’s part—a way to boost revenue that’s as obvious as it is ham-fisted—and while it shouldn’t have been allowed to happen, that it did is entirely unsurprising.

What Roku should have said

Instead of making excuses, Roku should have immediately recognized its error and made clear that it will never hinder basic navigation for the sake of ARPU (average revenue per user). Otherwise, there’s not much reason to consider Roku over anything else (including streaming devices with ad-free home screens or even a PC plugged into your TV).

With that in mind, I’m going to do my best impression of PR speak and tell you what Roku’s response should have been:

“We’re always looking for ways to connect our customers with new and exciting content, including from our advertising partners, but our recent test missed the mark. We recognize that Roku should never stand in the way of what customers want to watch, and our future experiments with new advertising formats will better-reflect that goal.”

And here’s what that would look like translated back to plain English:

“Look, we need to turn a profit, but hiding the home screen behind an ad wall was a bad idea, and we won’t be doing that anymore. Sorry!”

Will such assurances happen? I doubt it. Roku’s primary customers are no longer the ones who pay for its smart TVs or streaming players, but rather the advertisers who pay Roku for the coveted real estate on its platform. There will be no apology or concession, only continued experiments to see what else people will put up with.

Are you a Roku user ready to look for an alternative device? Take a look our most-recommended media streamers.

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