Amazon Fire TV devices now carry on-demand local news in 12 U.S. cities

Fire TV Stick 4k
Fire TV Stick 4k (Image credit: Android Central)

What you need to know

  • Amazon's news app now supports local news starting today.
  • You'll find it in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle
  • Amazon plans to reach almost 90 cities over the next year.

Amazon wants you to stay more in tune with your local news as it rolls out support for select news stations on the Amazon news app for Fire TV devices.

Announcing via blog post, Amazon said;

Starting today, live and on-demand local news will begin rolling out on Amazon's news app in 12 major cities — initially available in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle — including popular local stations CBSN Chicago, ABC7/WABC-TV New York, KIRO7 Seattle, and News 12 New York from news distributors such as ABC Owned Television Stations, CBSN, Cox, The E.W. Scripps Company, and Altice USA.

While one can expect to find large broadcasters like CNN and ABC everywhere, local news has fared poorly in the move to streaming and the web. Amazon's integration of these small news services may help bolster these struggling organizations and expand the reach of their content. The company has started with a small selection of supported cities, but it hopes to nearly quadruple that over the next year, with a target goal of around 90 cities.

Amazon launched the news app for the Fire TV platform last year, aggregating a wide range of content for users of Fire TV devices. Alongside these newly announced local news streams, it continues to support live and on-demand streams from the likes of ABC News, CBS News, Bloomberg, HuffPost, Yahoo, Reuters, Entertainment Weekly, Black News Channel, among others.

Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite

Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite

Amazon's newest HDMI dongle is its cheapest Fire TV stick ever. At $30, the Fire TV Stick Lite dispenses with the additional TV controls of its mainline counterpart, but it still gets the job done.

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Michael Allison