Apple TV Adds New Apps Including 24-Hour Streaming Channel From ABC

With so many new options crowding the market, digital TV services need to scale up quickly or they will lose their competitive advantages to newer, sleeker devices. Seven-year-old Apple TV is now the elder statesman in the digital TV industry, but Apple is keeping up with its challengers with a quartet of new apps. In addition to AOL, PBS Kids, and Willow, Apple TV now offers an ABC News app that will also serve as a 24-hour streaming channel.

Apple TV has mainly been marketed to consumers who use other Apple products, but the device’s overall library has generally fallen short when compared to Roku. In recent months, Apple has hinted at a plans to upgrade or complete replace Apple TV, but until those rumors are substantiated, the new apps will give existing customers a greater selection that includes access to all of AOL’s original programs.

The most important part

of Apple TV’s recent expansion is its new ABC News app. In its current form, the app will offer clips and archival content, but it will also function as something much bigger. As reported by Capital New York, the app will include eight hours of live video each day, with segments from ABC shows filling up the rest of the channel’s space. This experience will also be customizable. “It is for people that really want to control their news, and this is a place where people can get that,” said Joe Ruffolo, SVP of ABC News Digital.

While the ABC News streaming channel is launching on Apple TV, Ruffolo explained that “our goal is to definitely continue to try and expand across these over the top devices, as well as these smart devices, this year and next year.”