Amazon Fire TV is expanding its year-old effort to promote live programming, adding Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and Sling TV to its showcase for live fare.
The three major services, which together account for the majority of virtual MVPD subscriptions in the U.S., will join nearly 20 other integrated apps with live components. The existing roster includes Philo, Pluto TV and Amazon’s own Prime Video Channels.
Live programming from Hulu, YouTube and Sling will be directly integrated into Fire TV’s live TV discovery features, including the “live” tab, “on now” rows and multi-app channel guide. Alexa voice technology is usable when manipulating the guide.
The Sling integration began earlier this year. YouTube TV is on Fire TV as of Wednesday and Hulu + Live TV will be available in the coming weeks.
“We’re excited to welcome SLING TV, Hulu + Live TV, and YouTube TV into our integrated suite of Live TV discovery features,” says . “We believe the future of connected TV is one that brings live content forward, simplifies the streaming and OTT landscape, and enables customers to discover the programs they want to watch with ease,” Sandeep Gupta, VP of Fire TV, said in the official announcement.
Since the live TV area of the Fire experience was introduced last summer, the “live” tab has become the second most-visited destination after the home screen, Amazon said. Live apps included in the offering have seen total time spent and active user rates more than double since the live integrations began. Andrew McCollum, CEO of Philo, said the number of active users of the non-sports TV package has risen by two and a half times.