Roku Launches its "Live TV Zone" To Help You Find Live Programming

Today, Roku is launching its Live TV Zone, which will serve as a home to find live programming on your Roku device.

The new Live TV Zone won’t just be for Roku’s own Live TV Channel guide, which includes all of the Quibi content it recently bought. but it will also include third-party services like Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV to name a few.

Basically, this is Roku’s answer to the “Live” tab on Google TV that launched back in 2020. However, this includes a lot more than just the live TV channels from your streaming service.

The new Live TV Zone will be found under the Live TV tab on the left-hand navigation menu. It should be available for everyone as of right now.

Making it easier to find live programming

Roku’s aim here is to make it easier to find some live programming to watch. Whether that is a TV show, movie or something else. Previously, you’d need to jump into the Roku Channel, or into the appropriate app that has live programming.

Most of these TV software platforms are looking to make it easier to jump into apps and start watching something. The longer it takes you to find something to watch, the less you’re likely to watch. Which isn’t good for their platform, and for a platform like Roku, it’s not good for their ads revenue.

And this isn’t just live TV channels. Like Tubi TV, which has channels with different shows airing all the time. Or with the Roku Channel, which has live programming that is also free. Now incorporating it all into one tab, makes things a whole lot simpler.

This could also be the result of YouTube and Roku coming to terms for YouTube TV. As this does sound like what Google reportedly wanted from Roku.