Roku users will be able to watch NBC News via their little connected box following an agreement announced by the MSNBC Digital Network and the pioneering streaming platform. Viewers will be able to watch, free and on demand, content from top-rated NBC News programs including segments from NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams (pictured), Today and Meet the Press, in addition to clips from The Rachel Maddow Show and Morning Joe.
“Our goal at NBC News is to deliver high-quality journalism to audiences whether it be on-air, online or on-demand,” said Vivian Schiller, chief digital officer, NBC News. “Through this partnership with Roku, users can now access segments from America’s number one news programs at their convenience, using a platform that is simple and seamless.”
Roku, which was founded by DVR inventor Anthony Wood, features more than 350 entertainment channels including Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Pandora and games featuring Angry Birds. It has more than 1 million customers in the U.S.
“NBC News has always been a staple in my home, as I’m sure it has been in countless other homes,” said Ed Lee, vice president of content acquisition at Roku. “Now Roku customers can stream clips from some of the nation’s top news programming through their Roku players.”
Related links:
Photo of NBC news correspondent Brian Williams by Justin Stephens, used with permission
Until now, Roku’s NBC news offering has always been my second-most viewed Roku channel, following Netflix instant streaming. I looked forward to viewing NBC Nightly News, Morning Joe, and the Rachel Maddow Show, in full, the same evening or day following their network broadcast. The new Roku NBC channel offering, a gazillion various news snippets, mostly unidentified as to program, date, and ssequence, and including useless weird news clips about 5-legged sheep and 6-month-old entertainment blurbs interspersed with a redundant advertisement, is a total FAIL. Please give us back complete programs and relevant news.
Well said, Katie B. We, too, were regular viewers of The NBC Nightly News on Roku’s Newscaster Channel. However, the new NBC Channel on Roku is, in a word, unwatchable. (Katie, you forgot to mention that each of those snippets has to l…o…a…d.) One attempt to watch the Nightly News this way was enough. So long, Brian.
This new channel is a major downgrade from the NBC News channel that has been historically offered through the Roku Newscaster Channel. I can no longer watch the Nightly News, Rachel Maddow or Meet the Press…they have been replaced by a zillion little snippets as noted above. I don’t want to watch a few snippets of the news. I want to watch the news.
I was excited when this new channel was announced, as I had hoped to see my favorite programs closer to real time, and perhaps with some worthy additions such as Lawrence O’Donnell or Ed Shultz. Instead, we have been served up a major downgrade. I will continue to use my Roku device, but will spend more time listening to NPR news on the radio, and longing for the day when a programmer actually does make a move to serve us newshounds on the Roku platform. There is an empty space here that could be profitably filled.
NBC has pretty much wrecked it. NBC Nightly News, Rachel Maddow, etc flowed as a nice continuous stream when they were still integrated in Roku’s Newscaster channel. Now that NBC has created it’s own channel, Nightly News and the other programs have been chopped up into independent snippets, each covering one story at a time. To watch an entire program you now have to watch each video one at a time, enduring load times in between each snippet. It’s annoying to watch it this way and I’m not sure how NBC thinks this is a better viewing experience. Makes you wonder if anyone bothered to test the product before launching it. How do big, venerable corporations like this continue to fail on getting customer experience right?
The new NBC on ROKU is a sham and a shame. I could not easily turn on Nightly News- and Rachel Maddow is nowhere to be seen. This is not an improvement. Multi-snippets does NOT make a nightly news. Very difficult to find anything. I am very disappointed. This is not an improvement. It is a travesty. Whoever thought of this might want to find another job elsewhere. Please return to what you had originally. I have convinced many people that Roku is the thing to have if watching TV whilst paying for cable and dish networks. I will not recommend ROKU to anyone trying to improve their economic situation by leaving cable and dish for ROKU because of this new change to NBC. I watch TV irregularly – barely 6 hours a week, if that. ROKU was the perfect answer. NO MORE! Someone has ruined a really great thing. NETFLIX told me to contact ROKU. ROKU told me to contact the CONTENT VENDOR and then couldn’t tell me who or what that was and how to make the contact and then disappeared off the chatline. So everyone is passing the buck. Would whoever is responsible for this please step forward? Take a second look. Read all of the unhappy comments and do something about this situation.
Sign the Petition to get NBC on Roku fixed! They totally wrecked a great offering
http://www.change.org/petitions/nbc-please-fix-the-nbc-roku-channel
NBC’s new Roku channel in a word… ruined.