News To Go – Roku’s Best News Channels
Here’s a headline for you: Roku currently leads the way in the streaming media play market with 30% of the audience.1 Not only that, it is more powerful than its immediate competitors which include Google, Amazon and AppleTV. Roku has already acknowledged the importance of multiple streaming solutions, and added stick options that plug directly into your TV – and it’s tightening the screws on the competition by focusing on producing television software.2
The platform is host to over 2500 channels and streams both movies and TV series.3 But how well does Roku handle its news bundle? Their selection of news channels is huge – you can see them for yourself here https://channelstore.roku.com/browse/news-and-weather – and almost overwhelming in terms of what to subscribe to. We picked a few that stand out as the best and here they are – in no particular order.
Newsy
Newsy is free and gives you “news with the why” – a series of snackable video news and analysis. Their claim is that they do it all without the bias of your average news channel. Give it a shot and figure out for yourself if Newsy is for you; their claim that they deliver critical context from multiple sources to help you understand a story is a unique one.
Sky News
It’s free. It’s British. It’s live 24/7 and we’re proud to say, a Bitcentral customer. Sky also provides live broadcasts for the UK, the US and Canada. If you’re not watching live when news breaks, Sky offers cached feeds that allow you to catch up when its most convenient for you. And don’t worry about the British localization; they cover pretty both American and International news stories so you’ll get a well-rounded approach to the day’s headlines.
Free Speech TV
This channel is now over 20 years old. It was launched in 1995 and encourages viewers to become more civically engaged. It’s independent, publicly-supported and non-profit.
CBS All Access
This package runs at $6 per month, giving the viewer access to all CBS programming alongside an on-demand library that contains over 2,000 titles. In an interesting move that speaks volumes as to future distribution strategies, in 2017 CBS All Access will be the exclusive home to the new Star Trek series.3
Bloomberg TV+
The big selling point is here is the extensive collection of videos that cover stories in the business world. Bloomberg videos are well organized and include key segments from shows like With All Due Respect and Charlie Rose. Bloomberg TV+ draws upon a huge international news bureau network with 146 bureaus in 72 countries.
Sling TV
Another subscription service, Sling TV charges $20 per month but provides over 20 big broadcast and cable channels including CNN.
Roku has all shapes and sizes when it comes to news channels. They also offer up: Ashanti News Network; AOL On; NowThis News; Red State Talk Radio; The Lip TV; Time; TMZ; MSNBC and even the Onion News Network. Roku also offers a huge variety of local news channels. There are too many to list here but you can look at them: http://mkvxstream.blogspot.com/2014/05/news-roku-local-and-regional-news.html
There are so many news channels to choose from so we suggest you take your time to build your own network from within the Roku platform. It’s entirely possible to get as many views as possible on any given subject with the breadth of choice Roku offers.
1http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2016/05/18/apple-tv-doubles-sales-but-still-trails-google-roku-and-amazon/#5ec773a358ae
2http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/could-the-rise-of-smart-tv-kill-roku/
3http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-roku-channels,review-2133.html
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