Roku OS’s home screen now features a large, permanent ad - Ars Technica
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Roku just unveiled the biggest overhaul to its smart TV operating system (OS) in 10 years. The most noticeable difference is a new ad space that takes up a large chunk of the screen’s right side.
Before the update, loading up a Roku OS-powered smart TV or streaming device would yield a menu on the left side with sections including “What to Watch,” “Live,” and “Search.” The right side had a row of tiles for “Recommended” content above several rows of tiles representing downloaded apps. Once a user started started navigating the home screen, they’d see a large ad on the right side of the screen.
The old Roku OS landing page.
Credit:<br>Roku
The old Roku OS landing page.
Credit:
Roku
Now, users will see that large ad as soon as they turn on their Roku device. The ad remains visible as you navigate different parts of the Roku menu, taking away space that could be used for displaying apps and content.
The marquee ad space can show marketing for a TV show or movie that you can stream. For example, the image that Roku shared with its announcement shows the space occupied by an ad for the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso. The ad space could also just show a regular, possibly unrelated, advertisement. CNET, for example, reported seeing a demonstration that showed the space filled with an ad for The Farmer’s Dog dog food.
CNET, citing a discussion with Preston Smalley, VP of viewer product at Roku, reported “that the proportion of each type [of ad], paid or programmed, wasn’t set and could change.”
The home screen makeover seems tied to Roku’s efforts to maintain profitability. Roku first reached annual profitability in 2021, largely due to people staying at home during the pandemic. However, the company didn’t see annual profitability again until 2025, when its finances were buoyed by a growth in advertising revenue. In its most recent earnings report, Roku made $371 million in advertising revenue, and its Platform business, which includes advertising and subscriptions, posted a gross profit of $584.1 million. Roku’s devices business, meanwhile, lost $19.1 million. Total gross profit was $564.9 million.
In a February earnings call, Roku CEO Anthony Wood said that he thinks the new home screen, which was in testing at the time, would “increase monetization over time, whether that’s getting viewers to sign up for subscriptions or watch more ad-supported content.”
Other changes
The new Roku OS home screen also has a slimmer left sidebar menu with images replacing text. In the center are tiles for “Top Picks for You” above rows of tiles for “Quick Access.” The former, per Roku’s announcement, is a “personalized row that makes recommendations and highlights trending and relevant content based on your interest,” where “no two people will see the same mix.” Quick Access, meanwhile, uses AI to show users’ “most-used apps and shortcuts.”
“One of the things we found is that not very many people actually customized those app screens,” Smalley told Fast Company. “They’d end up scrolling all the way to the bottom of this long list. So, what we wanted to do was actually pull that all together in a way that made sense for you.”
Other changes include the addition of a section called Destinations, which Roku said are “curated hubs [that] span genres and moods,” such as comedies, sports, and movies, with content across different streaming services.
However, some users are perturbed by the new home screen.
“I don’t want recommendations! I know what I want to watch. Plastering ads for shit you think I want to see is the fastest way to get me to not watch it. This is going to suck,” an apparent Roku user going by Kruse on Reddit posted today.
One feature that could be useful but that’s not included in the update would be an easy way to play recently viewed content from across apps directly from the home screen, so you can quickly get back to watching. With Roku’s update, users can pin a “Continue Watching” tile to the Quick Access section or to their “shortcuts.” However, you’d have to enter the tile to access content, instead of being able to click play from the home screen, like some other smart TV OSes allow. Although, such a feature would be technically challenging to implement, especially among older Roku devices. Overall, Roku’s home screen update seems more geared toward recommending new stuff and using AI, rather than just recent history, to try to guess at what you might want to watch.
Roku TVs and streaming...