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ROKU Channel Adds Local NBC News Channels in Eight Markets

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Roku Inc. (ROKU - Free Report) recently announced a partnership with Comcast’s (CMCSA - Free Report) NBCUniversal to make news coverage from local NBC channels available to stream through its free, ad-supported Roku Channel.

Roku Channel already has a slate of national news options, including NBC News Now, but the latest addition marks the first for the platform in offering local news programming. ABC and CBS have news apps that are available for download but they are separate from the Roku Channel platform.

Roku Channel users can access the linear NBC station channels through the platform’s Live TV Guide, initially starting in eight markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas Fort Worth, Washington D.C., Hartford, and South Florida. Additional NBCU local channels will be added to Roku Channel’s Live TV Guide in the coming months.

Comcast’s NBC local news channels will feature the latest local news, breaking updates, weather forecast and live events from the designated area. The channels now arriving on the Roku Channel include — NBC News New York, NBC News Los Angeles, NBC News Chicago, NBC News Philadelphia, NBC News Dallas Ft. Worth, NBC News Washington D.C., NBC News Connecticut and NBC News South Florida.  

The addition of the channels will complement The Roku Channel’s existing lineup of national news options, which include NBC News Now, making both local and national news easily accessible to audiences.

Roku, Inc. Price and Consensus

Roku, Inc. Price and Consensus

Roku, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Roku, Inc. Quote

Distribution Partnerships to Expand Content Offerings

Roku Channel is a leader in free, ad-supported linear TV or FAST. It was the top FAST service in terms of active account reach on the Roku platform in the United States in the first quarter of 2022.

Roku Channel’s Live TV guide features more than 300 linear channels across news, sports, music and entertainment alongside more than 80,000 free movies and programs and premium subscriptions from over 50 content partners. It licenses and distributes content from more than 250 partners.

In addition to Roku devices, the Roku Channel is available on Web, iOS and Android devices, Amazon’s (AMZN - Free Report) Fire TV and select Samsung TVs.

Roku has been riding on distribution agreements to expand the content offerings on its platform. The company extended its distribution deal with Amazon. Per the agreement, Prime Video and IMDB TV content will continue to be available on Roku’s Channel Store.
The deal was timed appropriately since Prime Video recently became the exclusive hub of NFL’s Thursday night football games. This will help Roku boost its user base, thereby driving the top line.

Roku, in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD - Free Report) , launched discovery+, WBD’s streaming service, as a premium subscription on The Roku Channel.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s discovery+ offers 70,000 episodes of current and classic shows from a portfolio of networks. It also offers more than 200 discovery+ original titles and hundreds of hours of exclusive content, which will be available to Roku subscribers.

Roku also entered into a multi-year theatrical output with Lionsgate, beginning with Lionsgate’s 2022 theatrical releases. Per the Lionsgate-Roku deal, The Roku Channel will have two separate windows for each film streaming. The first window will provide Roku with the exclusive rights to stream its upcoming film slate for a limited time period, following its release on Lionsgate’s STARZ.

However, this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company has been incurring operating losses since its inception. The company reported an operating loss of $23.5 million for the first quarter of 2022. The company does not expect to generate profitability in the near term amid growing investments in sales & marketing and research & development. Despite the increasing top line, mounting losses do not augur well for investors’ confidence in our view.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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