Skip to main content

Roku launches Weekly Trivia game to test your pop culture mettle

Roku Weekly Trivia
Roku

Fancy yourself an entertainment trivia nerd? Roku today has announced the launch of a Roku Weekly Trivia feature to add a little bit of fun and family competition to the popular streaming device’s platform.

It’s available starting today in the U.S. on all Roku devices, such as Roku streaming players, Streaming Sticks, and smart TVs running the Roku operating system. Each Tuesday will see the arrival of a pool of multiple-choice pop-culture questions, and every time a user plays they’ll be presented with 10 questions from that pool. The game can be played several times per week from that week’s pool of questions. Roku Weekly Trivia can be accessed through the Home Screen menu, as well as through Roku’s Search function.

“You’ll discover the latest questions tied to cultural moments, such as the upcoming summer games, movie and TV premieres, holidays, and more,” a press release says. Journalists were given a glimpse into some of the trivia questions as part of accepting the news embargo, and they included such brain-teasers as these: “Which movie franchise has the most films?” “What was the first feature-length animated movie ever released?” and “What is the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time?” The questions are presented using some of Roku’s animated Roku City theme characters, including the robot and gorilla.

Sample question from Roku Weekly Trivia
Roku

The Roku streaming device and platform enjoys a user base of more than 80 million monthly active users and it’s one of the most popular and widely used in the world. Not only does it provide users access to one of the largest libraries of apps, including streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Amazon Prime Video, and its own Roku Channel, but you can also use it to play games and integrate it into your smart home devices like cameras with the use of utilities that you can download to the devices.

Roku Weekly Trivia is available for U.S. users today. There are currently no details on whether it will expand to other countries later.

Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm is a Toronto-based technology journalist, editor, and content specialist whose work has appeared in…
Numbers don’t lie: Roku’s streaming spats have given Amazon the edge
Amazon Fire TV Stick

For a long time, we've thought of Roku as the streaming media king. Not just because its software is so easy to use and its devices so affordable, but also because of its popularity -- the company has traditionally enjoyed a much larger share of the streaming market than its competitors. But it looks like the company's contentious relationships with some of the biggest names in streamed entertainment may be hurting that reputation: Amazon has just announced that its Fire TV platform has hit 50 million monthly active users on its devices globally, a number that comfortably edges out Roku, which reported 46 million monthly active users in November.

It took Roku a number of months to solve its differences with NBCUniversal's Peacock, but a similar dispute with entertainment giant HBO Max continues, with no end in sight. These spats alone don't necessarily account for Roku's slower growth when compared to Amazon's Fire TV, especially given that both Peacock and HBO Max are U.S.-only services right now. Other factors include the aggressive rollout and pricing of Amazon's new Fire TV devices, which in some cases deliver more features for less money than the equivalent Roku devices. Amazon's Alexa is now built into every Fire TV device, as one example.

Read more
NBCUniversal’s Peacock finally lands on Roku, ending long standoff
Tina Fey in a scene from the series 30 Rock.

Peacock, NBCUniversal's streaming service, is finally on the Roku platform starting today, ending a dispute between the two companies that had been raging since Peacock's launch in July.

"We are excited to bring Peacock and its unrivaled catalog to millions of Americans who enjoy entertainment on their favorite Roku devices," Maggie McLean Suniewick, president of business development and partnerships at Peacock, said in an emailed press release. “Roku customers are engaged streamers, and we know they’ll love access to a wide range of free and paid content.”

Read more
Is your Roku about to lose Hulu? Here’s how you can check
Roku XD with remote

Hulu is easily one of the most popular streaming apps for Roku (which happens to be the most popular streaming device). So it may come as a bit of a surprise that Hulu plans to discontinue its support for some of Roku's oldest devices on June 24.

According to a Hulu support page spotted by Ars Technica, the company will drop support for the Roku Streaming Player (models 2400 to 3100) and the original Roku Streaming Sticks (model 3420 or earlier).

Read more