Amazon Adding Local News to Fire TV

Major market local TV stations -- and their newscasts -- will be getting a boost with TV news content distribution deals on Amazon Fire TV, the streaming OTT and app service with 40 million monthly active users.

Mediapost reports newscasts from 12 local U.S. TV stations -- New York, LA, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle -- will be added to Amazon’s news app. Another 90 will join in 2021.

Amazon Fire TV deals have been made with Walt Disney’s ABC owned-and-operated stations, Altice USA, ViacomCBS’ CBSN, the E.W. Scripps Company and Cox.

The app already offers free live and on-demand news from ABC News Live, CBS News, Reuters, Entertainment Weekly, Black News Channel and Cheddar. Amazon Fire TV app already part of smart TV on-screen user interfaces and other streaming players.

Amazon sees growth in news viewership, pointing to 48% higher news consumption this year, according to Nielsen.

Pressure from shrinking traditional pay TV marketplace - in addition regular difficult, ongoing retransmission negotiation deals between pay TV providers and TV stations -- are focusing more TV station groups to find ways to extend scale and increased monetization.