Roku Channel Adds Live News and Curated Movie Collections

• Roku announced its free Roku Channel is adding new linear news programming.
• The new content will include from ABC News, Cheddar, and People TV.
• The free channel is ad-supported and is a quick way for new owners to find free content.

Roku announced its free Roku Channel is set to get a ton of free content from ABC News, Cheddar, and People TV. The free channel is a means of new streaming device owners to get access to some free content.

The Roku Channel does not have access to new releases or a very large pool of content, but if you have browsed through Netflix or Amazon video and did not find anything worthwhile to watch, you could always find random movies that are worth watching on the channel. The Roku Channel is one of the top 15 streaming apps on the platform and is in third place among ad-supported channels.

Image Courtesy of Roku

Aside from the free live news, the Roku Channel is also adding movie collections curated by the staff. Users should have an easier time finding movies that you may be interested in watching. A new “continue watching” option has also been added to allow users to quickly get back to what they have already hit play on. It is a feature that should have existed already according to The Verge. It happens to be one of the trade-offs the website had for being free to watch if you can put up with the ads.

Roku is a series of streaming players manufactured by Roku. Inc. Roku partners provide content in the form of channels via a wired or Wi-Fi connection for streaming tv shows, movies, news, sports and other types of content. The Roku device gets its data via the Wi-Fi connection from an internet router with the data output being through audio, video, and HDMI cables that connect directly to some of the device models. Programming for the device is available from a variety of global providers including Netflix, Amazon, Hulu among many other options.

Roku also announced that it is set to receive a new OS 8.1 update which is due in May. The update is meant to allow multiple users to listen to privately listen to audio streaming on a Roku TV on the mobile app.