Amazon today announced the launch of Fire TV Channels, a free live TV streaming service that will work similarly to Pluto TV and The Roku Channel. This service will be launched in the summer of 2023 and will offer 400 live channels.
Amazon already has free content on Fire TV in the Free content section. Starting this summer, this new Fire TV channels destination will be rolling out to Fire TV devices that puts over 400 live channels in one place on the Fire TV home screen.
Some of this new free content is already rolling out. Starting today, you’ll find content from ABC News, CBS Sports HQ, FOX Sports, Major League Baseball, NBC News Now, America’s Test Kitchen, and Martha Stewart Living added to the new free Fire TV section. New content and publishing partners will be added frequently leading up to the launch of Fire TV channels this summer. Amazon says that when the service launches, new content on Fire TV will be added continuously throughout the day every day.
“With the launch of Fire TV Channels, we’re doubling down on our ad-supported free TV experience (FAST) – which already includes news, sports, food, cooking, music videos, trailers, game videos, and comedy. In the past six months alone, the monthly hours streamed for that content have increased by 300%. When our customers love something, we invest in creating more ways to surprise and delight them,” said Charlotte Maines, Fire TV’s director of advertising, monetization, and engagement. “Fire TV breaks down barriers by living up to the ‘smart TV’ level of ‘smart TV.'” With Fire TV channels, we offer a simple, category-based experience that makes it easy to discover what you want to watch while constantly expanding our content offerings.”
The service will include live content, linear content, and video on demand.
This service will be ad-supported and build on the success of Amazon Freevee. There is no word yet on whether Amazon will make these new Fire TV channels exclusive to Fire TV devices or if Amazon will include this in the Freevee app for all of its supported devices. For now, Amazon says that the new Fire TV channels section will be exclusive to Fire TV devices.
Free ad-supported services are one of the fastest growing areas in the cord-cutting industry. Now it appears that Amazon wants a more significant part of this market by expanding its efforts to offer free ad-supported content.