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.

The live news content on The Roku Channel won't replicate live TV, and that's a big distinction. Many broadcast partners like ABC already have standalone Roku channels that require a cable subscription login to gain access to all content, live TV broadcasts included. The news content developed and packaged for The Roku Channel will be entirely free for Roku device users, no login required. While you won't be able to watch all live news shows provided by a content partner, you will be able to watch any content that the partner pushes to The Roku Channel in its feeds.

Giving users more free content, supported by ads

Much of the content on The Roku Channel until now has been entertainment-focused, licensed from partners including Lionsgate, MGM, and Paramount. Live and curated news may help make The Roku Channel more of a daily destination for users rather than a source of nostalgic content for the times that users are looking for some. While The Roku Channel isn't a social network, by featuring live content it follows in the footsteps of many social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Live-content streaming on these social media sites attracts users to breaking news stories and often keeps them on that site for as long as the live stream lasts.

Roku says it plans to reveal more news partners, and the company is optimistic about signing up new partners in the future. Roku clearly wants to diversify the types of content it can feature on The Roku Channel for free with ad support, likely believing that user retention and happiness can be boosted by additional free content available on its platform. When asked if Roku would get into content creation in the future, the company explained that it's focused on making it easier for users to enjoy existing content that may not have been as accessible before by finding a home for it on Roku.

Roku also made some software updates to The Roku Channel: the new "Continue Watching" carousel lets users go back to shows and movies they've previously watched but haven't yet finished, while the new "Collections" section categorizes content into genres and topics such as "Action" and "Thriller," making it easier for users to find the types of shows and movies they want to watch.

Roku OS 8.1 will also debut soon with a new private listening mode that allows more than one user to listen to the audio of Roku-streamed content via the Roku remote or their smartphone with paired headphones. Previously, private listening was limited to one user at a time, but the new feature allows up to four users to listen with their own headphones at once. Roku OS 8.1 will be available this May.