Amazon’s Fire TV has added thousands of hours of free ad-supported video and live content to its platform in the U.S., including sports highlights from MLB, NBC Sports and Fox sports.
New free content is accessible from dedicated rows on the Fire TV Home and Free screens and spans three categories of sports news and highlights, trending trailers, and food and cooking. Amazon is touting live, on-demand, and short-form content. Users can access without any sign-ups, downloads or fees to get the instant video playback.
Fire TV is beefing up free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) content as it marked notable engagement with the form of streaming content. In a statement, Charlotte Maines, director of Fire TV Advertising, Monetization and Engagement, said that compared to last year engagement with FAST content on the platform “is up over 50%,” in part thanks to new content.
“Since launching the Amazon News App on Fire TV in 2019, we’ve heard from our customers how important free, easily accessible content is to them,” Maines stated. “With the launch of these new rows of free videos, we’re excited to bring our customers thousands of hours of more content choices across categories they love, like sports, trailers, and cooking – always on, always free, and only one click away.”
As for the sports content, Amazon said starting with the MLB Postseason on October 7, Fire TV users can get MLB highlights throughout the World Series. That content will be featured in an MLB Highlights row, offering feature game recaps, must-see plays and highlight complications, among others.
In addition to on-demand news and analysis from NBC sports, Fox Sports and MLB, sports content will also be available from CBS Sports HQ, Sports Illustrated, NASCAR, Sportswire, Stadium, ACC Digital Network and Pac-12 Networks.
Trending TV and movie trailer content will come form IMDb. On the food and cooking front, Fire TV is bringing on cooking shows, hacks, food travel series and quick tips from America’s Test Kitchen, GoTravler and 5-minute Recipes. The streamer said it will be soon adding Gusto TV, Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse, Tastemade, Food52, SideChef and Hungry – which features content from Julia Child and Pati Jinich, among others.
Roku is another platform that’s touted consumer interest and meaningful engagement with FAST content as The Roku Channel added new categories including local news from NBC.
Fire TV also recently unveiled a slate of upgrades for its Cube streaming player, including increased functionality with Alexa voice control. That comes after user interface changes over the summer aimed at streamlining the platform to make it easier for users to navigate, search and discover content.