Amazon Fire TV's News App Adds Local Stations, But Only For Some Cities

In October 2019, Amazon introduced a free news channel for its Fire TV platform that enables users to get access to the latest news content. The channel has seen some updates in the months since, including the relatively recent addition of Black News Channel. With the latest update, some users can now access their local news stations.

Local news stations, of course, provide viewers with access to news content for their state and city. Anyone can access their local broadcast stations using a TV antenna, but few people take advantage of that option, instead getting news through streaming destinations, pay-TV services, and news apps. We've seen a growing number of streaming services roll out local news stations.

Fire TV is the latest among them, though the rollout initially only covers a dozen big cities in the US:

- San Francisco

- Boston

- Tampa

- Los Angeles

- New York

- Philadelphia

- Miami

- Houston

- Atlanta

- Chicago

- Dallas

- Seattle

Users have the option of adding one or two cities as their 'favorite' in the free news app, which comes installed on Fire TV by default (assuming you're located in the United States, that is). The local news content is offered alongside the national news features already available in the app.

Though the availability is limited at this time, Amazon says that it will expand the local station coverage throughout next year, ultimately bringing it to another 90 (unspecified) US cities. Fire TV joins the limited number of OTT/streaming platforms that offer local news access, including Roku channels and Hulu.