Watching live TV can be hard, Amazon wants to make it easier
Your Fire TV guide is getting some new live programming features. Alexa will take you straight to live TV.
- Extensive journalism experience in digital media.
Don't worry, Jared. New features are coming to Amazon's Fire TV guide.
Maybe it's too much effort to grab the remote and click over to HBO and scroll through what's on.
So Amazon wants to help.
Owners of Fire TV streaming devices can discover live programming on a new row called On Now that displays on their home page. The feature, however, is limited to a handful of subscription channels: HBO, Showtime, Starz and Cinemax.
And there's a catch. As Amazon points out, you have to subscribe to those services via Amazon Channels, a Prime benefit. (Editors' note: Showtime is a part of CBS, which also owns CNET.)
Amazon said Tuesday that it will add more channels "in the near future."
A new Channel Guide also lets you leap ahead to find out what's playing in the future. And if you know you want to watch HBO after all, you can ask Amazon's digital voice assistant to take you there by saying "Alexa, watch HBO," for example.
Just think, someday you'll ask Alexa to take you to HBO and you'll find new episodes of "Game of Thrones" again.
Someday.