Amazon has expanded the availability of free local news coverage on its Fire TV platform to 158 cities across the US.
This coverage is available via the Amazon news app, which debuted in 2020 with just 12 cities. It expanded to 88 cities in March, and now covers nearly double that amount throughout the US.
The number of channels offered by Amazon news has more than doubled, too, with Amazon saying that figure has risen from 126 in March to 259 with the most recent expansion. A full list of these new channels and the cities they cover is available via Amazon’s announcement.
Amazon’s app is free, available on all Fire TV devices, and is compatible with the Alexa voice assistant. Fire TV owners who are curious about the coverage available in their area can find it in the “Local News” tab within the Amazon news app.
The expansion of this coverage largely meshes with Amazon’s content efforts. It recently introduced an offering called Kindle Vella for episodic written content, for example, and has long invested in original content for its Prime Video and Audible platforms.
Offering to produce local news could be a bit thornier of a proposition—former CEO Jeff Bezos buying The Washington PostThe Washington Post in 2013 was controversial enough—so offering free access to existing channels makes sense. Content is content, and now Amazon’s news app has more of it.
