Amazon is expanding its live news coverage by adding local stations for over 88 US cities on Amazon Fire TV devices including the Amazon Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick 4K and Amazon Fire TV Cube.
The Fire TV update should already be available now, and when it’s downloaded you should see a new local news section in the live TV section of the Fire TV interface or you can say “Alexa, play local news” to pull it up.
How many local stations you see will depend on which city you’re closest to (the Bay Area is likely to have more stations than, say, Tempe, Arizona) but you should at least be able to see clips from your local station.
The good news about your local news? Amazon’s news aggregate service is free (with ads) so you don’t have to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to see it.
Can Fire TV scratch the itch for local news?
As more folks cut the cord, finding a replacement for the local news has been tricky. That being said, Amazon has been hard at work building out its news offerings.
Previously, Amazon added live national news feeds to Amazon Fire TV and last year rolled out the new local news feature first for 12 of the largest cities in America including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle.
Now that list includes 88 lesser-populated metropolitan areas like Austin, Baltimore, Cleveland and Buffalo, New York, which means a much larger percentage of folks should be able to see what’s happening in their cities.
“Local news helps our customers stay connected to important issues and updates within their communities,” said Charlotte Maines, Director of Amazon Fire TV, in a statement to TechRadar.
“In the last year especially, local news has been incredibly helpful in an uncertain environment and our viewers continue to ask for more news options. This expansion will bring a truly local experience to both Fire TV and the streaming industry.”
Because it tends to show you clips instead of live video (at least in our closest metropolitan area) it might not be the best replacement for your cable box or HD antenna, but it's a good step in the right direction.
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