The Sling Local Now hyper-local content offering is now rolling out on Roku devices. The ad-free offering from The Weather Channel, previously available on devices supported by Sling TV, provides current, localized news, weather, sports and traffic updates. Local Now is available to Sling ¨Best of Live TV¨ subscribers at no additional cost.
Local Now is available in 207 U.S. markets, including major cities and metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
Sling Local Now
In addition to Roku, Local Now is accessible via Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire tablets, Android smartphones and tablets, Android TV platforms including Google’s Nexus Player, Chromecast, Macs and PCs, Sling TV notes in a blog post. Sling TV staff say the roll out of Local Now to all remaining Sling TV supported devices will continue in coming weeks.
Sling already distributes a variety of national live news services, including Bloomberg Television, Newsy and HLN. In addition to content from The Weather Channel, Local Now delivers live news and updates from the Associated Press, SportRadar, TrafficLand and INRIX. Local Now determines a user’s location based on IP address and delivers content for that area, enabling users to get information for other cities when they travel.
OTT video service providers, and other news and entertainment media services have been looking to leverage capabilities such as that to differentiate their offerings from traditional pay TV offerings.
