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YouTube to stay on Roku, ending feud
One of the hottest fights over streaming may have settled into a cold truce. YouTube and Roku on Wednesday said they’ve reached a multi-year pact that will keep YouTube playing on Roku devices. Both players had accused the other of anti-competitive conduct. YouTube is a digital video behemoth, housed within Google parent Alphabet. Roku offers devices capable of streaming video to TVs around the world. The back-and-forth between them threatened to strip the internet’s biggest video streaming service from tens of millions of TV devices.At issue: technical and financial terms for distributing YouTube’s flagship app and its YouTube TV service.Roku opposed what it described as unfair terms, such as a requirement it prioritize YouTube in search results and updating its hardware. YouTube claimed its efforts were consumer-friendly and accused Roku of using its market power to squeeze out a better deal. As a result, Roku yanked the YouTube TV app from its channel store after its deal had ended. YouTube, which boasts more than 2 billion monthly users, threatened to remove its main app from Roku on Thursday at the end of that contract. Roku investors cheered the deal, sending its shares up over 12% in early trading Wednesday while shares of YouTube owner Alphabet fell slightly.
