Amazon officially announced its long-rumored ad-supported news video service Tuesday. The new service will be available on Fire TV devices as well as Fire tablets, and rely on videos from publishers including CBS News, Reuters, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, People, Cheddar and others.
News coverage served up through the app includes livestreams as well as on-demand videos. Other publishers participating include Yahoo, AOL, Al Jazeera, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated, Newsy and Wochit.
The service, which will simply be known as “News” on Amazon’s devices, will be coming to Fire TV streaming adapters and compatible TVs first. Rolling out in stages over the next several weeks, some Fire TV owners will be able to use the “News” app as early as this week.
Check out a demo of the service, provided by Amazon, in the video below:
Amazon didn’t announce a set launch date for Fire tablet, only saying that the service would launch on those devices “soon.” Amazon’s news service won’t require users to create a separate account, or authenticate with cable news networks. Instead, it is supported entirely by advertising.
Rumors about the company’s plans to launch an ad-supported news service had been circulating for months. With it, Amazon squarely competes with news aggregators like Haystack.tv and Watchup, as well as the news sections of ad-supported video services like Pluto and the Roku Channel.
This isn’t Amazon’s first foray into ad-supported video. The company launched an ad-supported service for movies and TV shows out of its IMDB subsidiary at the beginning of the year.