STIRR Offering New Shows On First Anniversary

STIRR, a free, ad-supported OTT-TV streaming service owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, marked its one-year anniversary today by announcing its intention to launch a new channel dedicated to live 2020 election events.

With more than 1.6 million app downloads, STIRR offers access to some of the most popular local news, entertainment and digital first channels. This month, it will add original channel 2020 LIVE to further expand the platform’s unmatched news offerings.

Launching the week of Jan. 20, the new 2020 LIVE channel will offer a continuous stream of live election coverage, giving viewers live access to daily campaign event feeds from across the country, including town hall meetings and stump speeches. STIRR said this coverage “will be presented without any commentary, giving viewers the most transparent, bias-free view into the campaign trail.”

To further celebrate its milestone, STIRR will soon offer post-broadcast on demand viewing of some of the most popular syndicated shows, including hits like Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and many more. Launching in late first quarter, episodes from syndicated TV shows originally aired by the Sinclair TV stations will be available to viewers dependent upon the city a viewer is located in.

“STIRR’s offering of live, local news content reflects that its purpose isn’t to solely entertain, but to serve members of local communities and provide information that impacts their lives,” said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley. “We’re incredibly proud of the growth and success the platform has seen throughout the year, and look forward to providing users with more value. With the addition of local broadcast TV syndication programming coming to the platform, we’re excited for what the next year has in store for STIRR.”

Since launching one year ago with 24 channels, STIRR now offers audiences 100 linear channels, and more than 5,000 hours of video-on-demand (VOD) content at no cost to the consumer. This includes the first-of-its-kind STIRR City channel, a curated, 24/7 linear TV station with a lineup based on the viewer’s city, offering local news and sports, as well as syndicated TV series, movies and city-focused lifestyle programming to audiences across country. In 2019, more than 130,000 hours of live, local news were streamed across STIRR City channels.