Tegna, a Virginia-based broadcasting company with coverage spanning 51 U.S. markets, plans to roll out redesigned streaming apps for its 64 stations. Each app will offer a 24-7 streaming channel for its respective station – consisting of live local news, newscast relays, extended coverage and more.
Two stations, 11Alive+ in Atlanta and WTHR13+ in Indianapolis, are currently piloting their new apps and other Tegna stations will follow suit throughout the year. Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV will be the first to offer the apps before they become available on other platforms.
Tegna, the largest group owners of NBC-affiliated stations, touts its first-generation apps have recorded over 100 million minutes of streaming per month, according to Tegna’s chief digital officer Adam Ostrow.
“Now, with 24-7 access to news, sports, lifestyle content, weather forecasts and more, stations are delivering on our ‘live, local and always on’ promise more than ever, making our valuable and important local content available to viewers when they want it,” said Ostrow in a statement.
Station livestreams will include sports content from Tegna’s “Locked On” network, which broadcasts games across the four major U.S. sports leagues as well as college sports programs. Tegna’s interactive live daily show covering entertainment and pop culture "Daily Blast Live" will also be a part of the stream’s lifestyle content slate.
Tegna’s app revamp is indicative of broadcasting companies’ desire to tap into the OTT market. ABC earlier this year launched new streaming news channels across several major U.S. markets, one week after CBS News rebranded its streaming service and added 13 local streams.
Though not every news channel is guaranteed success by shifting to streaming. CNN’s CNN+ SVOD service was shut down by Warner Bros. Discovery on April 30, only one month after its initial launch.
Tegna’s OTT enhancements to its stations will prove beneficial to Standard General, which announced an acquisition of Tegna in February for $8.6 billion. Standard General plans to sell off several of Tegna’s Texas stations to Cox Media Group after the deal closes, which is expected to happen sometime in the second half of this year.