Amazon Fire TV's free news app rolls out to the device today, offering live and on-demand local news from 88 major U.S. cities, as Amazon seeks to counter the dominance of platform king Roku in the streaming device market. could be a way to make Fire TV more competitive.

As detailed in Amazon's announcement, the dozens of channels include "popular local stations from ABC-owned TV stations and news distributors like CBSN" in Detroit, New Orleans, Orlando, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City. This follows a 2020 rollout that includes other large markets such as Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.

The Fire TV news app has a local news tab that automatically adds the nearest stations based on the nearest metro area. Of course, there is Alexa integration. Users can say "Alexa, play local news" to the Alexa Voice Remote or Fire TV Cube to see what's happening in their area right now.

Currently, Roku offers free news through a series of services available on the Roku Channel. This includes national news apps like CBS News and Local Now (both free on Fire TV).

That said, Amazon's offering of a dedicated news section (and its more prominent placement in the new news-only app) may make this programming easier to find on Amazon than on Roku.

A full list of cities where Amazon currently offers local news is as follows: