It appears that technological and retail behemoth Amazon is on the cusp of launching a new free ad-supported video news app for its Fire TV in the coming months.
According to sources to The Information, the new service may be integrated into Amazon’s Alexa offerings.
However, Amazon hasn’t officially announced any plans and there is no confirmation of programming deals, although the report does say that Amazon has approached several news organisations in order to distribute their news content.
The Information’s sources say that Amazon is looking to provide local news coverage which would distinguish it from its US competitor Roku’s free streaming news service.
The service would tie-in nicely with Amazon Prime’s original content offerings, available now in Australia.
The Information claims Amazon is aiming to integrate its news video app with its smart assistant Alexa, but no details on how this would work are shared.
Apple recently announced the launch of its news service set to arrive this year on devices outside Apple’s traditional ecosystem including Samsung and LG smart TVs, and third-party streaming boxes like Amazon Fire TV.
No news on whether this new news service could hurt Apple’s chances of becoming a new source of quality content alongside Amazon and Netflix.