Over the past year, Amazon has expanded support for their Live TV experience – which now has support for more than 400 live streaming channels across almost 20 providers, such as YouTube TV, Sling TV, and Philo.
Over 200 of these channels don’t require a subscription and are free with ads from services like Tubi and Pluto TV, along with the recent additions of IMDb TV, Xumo and Amazon’s News App. They company says that Plex will also be joining the suite shortly.
“We’ve always taken a content-forward approach when designing Fire TV. When you turn on your TV, you’re going to see shows, movies, and sports — not just rows of apps. This philosophy extends to our approach to live content,” said VP & GM of Amazon Fire TV, Sandeep Gupta. “We’re continuing to invest heavily in Live TV and so are our content partners. We’re expanding that today with the addition of new integrations, Alexa capabilities, and enhanced content discovery mechanisms.”
With engagement from live streaming apps on Fire TV doubling in the last 12 months (up over 130%), Amazon has invested in making the consumer’s live TV experience simpler, implementing Live Tab, Universal Channel Guide, and advanced Alexa controls for Live content.
In addition to the previous Alexa features where you can say, “Alexa, open the guide” or “Alexa, tune to CBS,” you can now specify a program such as “Alexa, play The Price is Right” or “Alexa, play the Rangers game”.
For those with the all-new Fire TV user interface, Live TV programs will now appear in the “App Peek” feature. For instance, when you hover over Pluto TV on the main page, you’ll see what’s on so you can immediately navigate to the Live program. Currently, App Peek is available on Fire TV Stick (3rd gen) and Fire TV Stick Lite, with the feature rolling out Fire Stick 4K, Fire TV (3rd Gen), and Fire TV Cube, along with the new Fire TV interface this month.