(credit: Casey Johnston)

Roku wants to make The Roku Channel, its native destination for free, ad-supported content, more than just a streaming channel you turn to for classic movies and TV show episodes. Today, the company announced a new live news portion of The Roku Channel, featuring content from partners including ABC News, Cheddar, and PeopleTV. The section will hold live and linear news feeds made and curated by these partners, essentially giving The Roku Channel its own 24-hour news hub.
Roku explained to Ars that it's working with partners to figure out the best way to present news content on OTT devices. In the case of ABC, the company's feed on The Roku Channel will be dubbed ABC News Live, which is different and separate from the existing ABC News channel that already exists on Roku.
In addition to special segments and previously recorded clips from existing broadcasts, ABC News Live will be home to many live feeds that ABC News would already be covering. For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Senate hearing earlier this month could have been live content for ABC News Live to stream. The broadcaster may also expand on existing reports, such as George Stephanopoulos' recent interview with James Comey, with director's cuts that add more information than the one-hour special allowed.

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