Local Now, the Allen Media Group-owned free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service, has added three national news and talk channels from NBC.
They include NBC News Now, featuring national and international breaking news; Today All Day, offering celebrity interviews, food, and recipes, among others; and Dateline 24/7, showing true-crime mysteries, documentaries and in-depth investigations.
“Adding these three excellent NBC News FAST channels is another milestone achievement for Allen Media Group as we continue expanding the Local Now channel content,” said Byron Allen, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, in a statement. “NBC is an outstanding brand in both news and entertainment, so this collaboration is an obvious choice for Allen Media Group to give our viewers the ability to stream this amazing content for free, anytime on Local Now.”
Local Now is one of several FAST services looking to offer free entertainment and local programming, with the platform delivering more than 450 streaming channels. The FAST provides localized news, weather, sports, traffic and entertainment in more than 225 markets across the U.S., including a Local Now channel in every DMA in the country. Local Now is available via its app on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Xfinity, Vizio, Samsung, Android and iOS devices.
In adding more news options to its offering, Local Now is following similar moves from other streamers to attract viewers. Roku last year inked deals to bring NBC local news channels to viewers of The Roku Channel across several markets. Local Now itself December inked a deal with PBS that allows viewers to see live feeds of PBS member stations across more than 300 respective markets. And last September Local Now added 27 local news channels from Hearst Television’s digital brand Very Local.
And news appears to be one of the main categories viewers are turning to FASTs for.
In a recent interview with Fierce Video, Srinivasan KA, co-founder and CRO of FAST tech vendor Amagi, which helps companies spin up, distribute and monetize FAST channels, said news is “a huge driver on the FAST side.”
“In fact, we’re seeing almost a third of viewership on FAST comes from news in general, and local news is a big part of that,” KA told Fierce.
The FAST medium overall is poised for growth, with recent analysis by TVREV projecting that the category’s share of TV ad spend will outpace that of broadcast, cable or SVOD by 2025. By 2027 the analysts expect FAST services to account for 42%, or $42.6 billion, of TV ad spend - up from its 17% share in 2023.
Local Now is just one of Allen Media Group’s streaming platforms, alongside The Weather Channel, TheGrio, HBCU Go, and Sports.TV. AMG also owns 27 ABC-NBC-CBS-FOX network affiliate broadcast TV stations in 21 markets and 12 HD TV networks serving nearly 220 million subscribers.
Also this week AMG announced it would be creating its 70th HD TV series for this fall in broadcast syndication, with a weekly one-hour series called “FAST: Home Rescue,” which highlights home renovations for families that have been impacted by natural disasters.