Local Now Named ‘Best Streaming Service’ as Carriage Disputes Make Local News Harder to Find
Time for Local Now to start building a trophy shelf! The free streaming news and on-demand video platform has been named the “Best Streaming Service” by the Digiday Video and TV Awards. Digiday noted Local Now’s focus on local news, weather, and event information as one of the distinguishing factors for the service. Digiday lauded the free streamer’s appeal to consumers as they continue to cut the cord, but still want to find ways to watch local programming.
“We are honored that Digiday has awarded Local Now as Best Streaming Service and we are thrilled that our amazing free-streaming platform is being recognized as a leader in the streaming industry,” said Byron Allen the founder and CEO of Local Now parent company Allen Media Group. “Local Now is the leader in local news with the most local channels of any free streaming platform with thousands of free movies and documentaries. We are committed to delivering best-in-class local programming and entertainment for FREE and will continue expanding our streaming footprint globally.”
Local Now provides localized news, weather, sports, traffic, and entertainment, produced by various leading news organizations, in more than 225 markets across the United States. It offers more than 450 free streaming channels, including a Local Now channel in every major market in the country, as well as more than 18,500 movies, TV shows, and documentaries on-demand.
With apologies to Local Now, which does a fantastic job serving cord-cutters with local news and entertainment for free, it was a bit surprising to see a service like this edge out competitors like Hulu, Paramount+, or even another free service like Pluto TV or Tubi. So how did Local Now nab the top spot in Digiday’s awards?
To start with, it’s becoming harder and harder to get local news content via streaming. Carriage disputes between network affiliates and live TV streaming services are becoming more and more frequent, and when those occur, cord-cutters are forced to look elsewhere to get local programming. Such a disagreement recently arose between fuboTV and CBS affiliates, which led to the service dropping the channel in 160 markets across the country and replacing it with a national feed of the Eye Network.
That schism may soon be healed, but a new dispute between Sinclair Media Group-owned ABC affiliated and Hulu + Live TV has cropped up that could drag on even longer. Affiliate groups are beginning to demand larger carriage fees from live TV streamers to make up for their viewer losses on the traditional cable side, and such disputes could become more frequent in the future.
We at The Streamable may not have a big annual awards ceremony to declare our best streaming services, but we’ve still got recommendations! Check here to see our top picks for subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services in 2023, and here for our recommendations on live TV streamers!
Local Now
Local Now is a free video streaming service that includes on-demand access to movies and TV shows. The service also provides several virtual streaming channels, including newscasts from New York, Denver, Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, Nashville, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, and West Palm Beach. Over 220 cities in the United States have a localized feed. Local Now offers live severe weather coverage from The Weather Channel to people viewing in areas impacted by the severe weather event