Houston is one of 12 U.S. cities where Amazon is rolling out free local newscasts on its Fire TV streaming video devices.
KTRK-TV (Channel 13), an ABC affiliate, will provide access to its local newscasts for the Houston market, according to an Amazon spokesperson. The newscasts will be the same as those broadcast over the air during the day, and will include ads.
With the initiative, Amazon becomes the first streaming platform to integrate local news. The newscasts will be included in the Fire TV’s existing News app, which also has national and international news.
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Jared Newman, a journalist who covers the intensely competitive streaming market with a popular newsletter, said there are apps available that provide local newscasts.
“If there's a significance here, it's that Amazon has a huge platform where it can get folks to tune into these free streams,” Newman said.
Other markets included in the initial rollout are Chicago, Seattle, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco-Oakland, Tampa, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, New York City and Los Angeles. Amazon expects to have newscasts nearly 90 cities available next year.
The Fire TV is the most-used streaming platform, according to June 2020 data from Statista, just barely edging out Roku. It is available both as a streaming box or stick that is plugged into a TV’s HDMI port. The Fire TV software is also built into some HDTV models.
Among the other apps that provide local TV newscasts for various platform is NewsON, which includes live and recorded news shows from KHOU-TV (Channel 11), Houston’s CBS affiliate.
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There is also Locast, an app available for most streaming platforms and mobile devices, that lets users access local broadcast channels over the internet. Locast is a nonprofit, and uses a part of communications law that allows nonprofits to re-transmit local stations as a service to those who may not be able to receive over-the-air signals.
Locast is being challenged in court by broadcasters, who say it is illegally getting around paying carriage fees, the money collected by local TV stations from cable and streaming services that carry them.
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December 04, 2020 at 01:00PM
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Amazon providing Houston newscast in its Fire TV news app - Houston Chronicle
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