You may have noticed it appearing throughout the month, but Amazon has now officially released its new-ish Fire TV Channels app on Fire TV devices. Over the past few years, Amazon has been adding free ad-supported content throughout the Fire TV home interface in the form of short clips and full-length videos across numerous categories like news, sports, entertainment, gaming, cooking, travel, and more. Earlier this year, Amazon branded all this built-in free content as “Fire TV Channels” with the promise that it would soon add “a single, easy-to-navigate” method to access this content. That method has now arrived in the form of the new Fire TV Channels app, which isn’t actually as new as it may seem.
The origin of Fire TV Channels stretches back to 2020 with the release of the Fire TV News app because, you see, the new Fire TV Channels app is actually just the Fire TV News app under the hood. Amazon expanded the Fire TV News app over the years with more and more news sources. When it came time to release non-news ad-supported content, Amazon decided to just pump that content through the existing Fire TV News app, just without the news-oriented navigation menu present.
Now that Amazon’s assortment of free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) content has exploded far beyond news, the former News app is being relaunched as Fire TV Channels with a new navigation sidebar to get to all the different categories of clips, trailers, and full-length shows. If you’re a fan of the Fire TV News app, it’s still around in your list of apps and, while it technically loads the same app, opening the News app will lead you to the news-focused navigation interface you’re used to.
As for the Fire TV Channels “app” and its new interface, it has a very straightforward navigation menu with a sidebar containing the categories Home, News, Sports, Entertainment, Gaming, Cooking, Travel, and Music Videos, of which most have a sub-menu to further filter the available content. If you ever tried to find this free content among the mess of Fire TV home screen rows, you’ll know it was quite a chore, so, the simplicity of the new Fire TV Channels app interface is very welcomed.
Amazon touts “over 400 content providers” available through the Fire TV Channels app including ABC, CBS, Fox, NHL, People, IGN, GoTravel, Variety, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, TV Line, GameSpot, Honest Trailers, TV Guide, Looper, Slash Film, Funny or Die and much more. While the vast majority of this content, if not all of it, is already available for free from other apps and services, having it all in one place with a simple categorized layout makes it easier to find and watch what you’re interested in.
You’ll find the Fire TV Channels app pre-installed on Fire TV devices in the US and listed in your list of apps. Reusing the already present News app for this content comes with the advantage of Fire TV Channels not taking up much more of the limited internal storage space of most Fire TV models. For the time being, it appears as though Amazon is keeping around the various orange-on-white Fire TV Channel shortcut tiles, like Trending Trailers, Viral Videos, and Sports Highlights, even though they are now simply ways of directly accessing those categories within the Fire TV Channels app. I suspect these shortcut apps will eventually be removed, but you can always just hide them yourself by pressing the menu button on your remote while the icon is highlighted. you can also open the Fire TV Channels app by saying “Play Fire TV Channels” to your Fire TV microphone.
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So basically Amazon answer to The he Roku Channel with mainly YouTube stuff
What about firestick and other amazon streaming devices.
The term “Fire TV” refers to all streaming devices running the Fire TV operating system, including Fire TV Sticks (Firesticks), Fire TV Cubes, and Smart TVs with Fire TV built in. So this new app is also on Firesticks.
I have fire stick will I get those additional channels too?
If you’re in the US, you will get the “Fire TV Channels” app and the content mentioned in this article.
I have firetv 4k stick and I am in US and my software on the stick is the latest.
But I did not get the “firetv channels” app, nor the search for it produces any results.
Any idea how to fix this?
I don’t see the app on my firestick
So, does clicking the “Fire TV Channels” app listing call up the same or different live streaming “FAST” channels as the “Live Guide” button on the more recent Fire TV remotes?
And, does hiding channels from the Live Guide menu within the Fire TV OS do anything in the way of hiding the same content within the “Fire TV Channels” interface?
No, the content in the new Fire TV Channels app does not appear in the Live Guide. The FAST content from Amazon that is in the Live Guide is coming from the Freevee app.
Hiding channels in the Live Guide will never hide content within any app. The Live Guide listings are completely independent.
What a typical Amazon mess! No way to “favorite” liked content. No way to organize / re-order the couple dozen content categories that you like or don’t like. No way to hide content categories you’re totally uninterested in… Why????
There’s a number of live streaming stations present, as pulled in from the Amazon News app, and in some other categories like Cooking, Weather and some sports. But none of the other third-party app content like that available in the Fire TV Live Guide from other apps like Plex, Xumo, Tubi etc… And the rest of the content is typically short clips from various sources.
All in all, it looks a lot like a totally uncustomizable Amazon version of Youtube.
Another poorly implementation by Amazon who can’t seem to do anything right lately.
Their earnings destroy estimates. Get a clue
I’m not sure how well or poorly they implement the details of free streaming content on Fire TV devices has much to do with Amazon’s overall earning results.
which countries is it released in?
US only right now.
Not available in Canada yet
Please come to Brazil
When is this available to amazon firesticks in Australia
I’d rather pay extra for no commercials, especially since I have impressionable kids at home.
I do not have it with us firestick 4k.
Even when I do search for “firetv channels” nothing comes up.
Firestick is on latest software.
How do I enable it?
I have the same question. I have a 3rd Gen FireTV Stick with the latest software, but the FireTV Channels app isn’t in my app list or the FireTV App Store.
Open Your Apps & Channels (3 squares and a plus sign on the home screen next to the Settings cog wheel). In the page that opens, scroll to the bottom and you should find Fire Tv Channels listed there if your software is up to date.
Somehow I managed to not post this as a reply to Todd Stewart for whom it was intended