Roku adds news videos into its search

OREANDA-NEWS. June 21, 2016. Roku is making it easier for viewers to catch up on the news by adding it into its universal search feature.

The search feature, which is available on current Roku streaming boxes, the Streaming Stick and televisions that have the Roku platform built-in, now allows for entering in a topic such as "Apple" or "NBA," and will retrieve a listing of videos pertaining to that topic from across many of streaming news channels on the platform. These include news broadcasts from the four major US networks -- such as ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX -- as well as from digital outlets like Yahoo (Disclosure: CBS is the parent company of CNET).

And what if you don't have a specific topic in mind? News videos can also be searched using the date by entering in the numbers without punctuation (for instance, June 20 would be 620). Just don't enter it in as "June 20," as a Roku rep confirmed to us that the search would instead pull in more broad search results for "June" and "20."

Roku's search feature has mainly served to help a viewers find a movie or television show across the myriad of digital stores and subscription services available on the platform. That way, viewers can find out if they would need to purchase an episode of "Bates Motel" from a store like Amazon Video or if they can stream it from a service they already subscribe to such as Netflix.