Amazon announces free ad-supported Fire TV Channels

Amazon plans to launch Fire TV Channels, a new free ad-supported service for Amazon Fire TV device owners soon.

Fire TV Channels may sound like Amazon’s Freevee service at first glance. Both services are free and ad-supported, but there are differences. A core difference is that Fire TV Channels is only available on Fire TV devices, whereas Freevee is available for all Amazon customers.

Freevee can be streamed in any modern browser, on TV using apps or using streaming devices, which do not have to be from Amazon.

Amazon announced the launch of the new Fire TV Channels service on its About Amazon website. There, the company highlighted new features and changes coming to Amazon’s various TV products and offerings.

Amazon Freevee, for example, has started to order new Originals and will also gain access to more than one hundred Amazon Originals on top of that.,

Amazon Fire TV Channels is a new product that will be exclusively available on Fire TV devices. These include streaming sticks and boxes, and Fire TV televisions.

Fire TV Channels looks as if it will provide watchers with a wide range of topics. The screenshot of the interface that Amazon shared shows channels for food & cooking, sports, gaming and viral videos.

The content is provided through content partnerships. Amazon announced that more than 400 partners will deliver content for Fire TV Channels. Amazon Fire TV Channels feature video on demand content as well as live and linear content, according to Amazon.

Fire TV Channels content contains ads. Amazon did not reveal the minutes that users can expect to watch ads per hour or day of streaming, but it is likely in the Freevee ballpark. Amazon Prime Video supports channels already. These are subscription-based and do not contain ads.  A new Free tab on Fire TV devices marks the entry point for the new offering.

Closing Words

Advertising is slowly creeping into the TV and movie streaming world. Major players like Netflix and Disney have announced ad-supported plans, and these seem to work really well for them.

Amazon dipped its toe into the market with the launch of Freevee, a free ad-supported streaming option. Freevee seems to be successful enough to launch another ad-supported product. Google and Roku are also in the market already or announced their entry.

Amazon’s Fire TV Channels offering looks like a condensed version of what users find on YouTube. It is too early to tell if the service will also offer full length TV shows and movies, or if its entire focus is on shorter clips, entertainment and news stories.

Now You: will you watch Amazon Fire TV Channels when the service becomes available?

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