Makes perfect sense. So then an unrelated question… will we see the horizontal scroll implemented in other sections of the UI? 
I appreciate this new feature and the clarification about what its intended for. I’m seeing a bunch of non-news items in the News section though. A lot of it is from Pluto and other custom channels (due to shoddy guide data, I’m sure) so if it’s possible for us to customize and/or remove certain shows, channels or sources from inclusion here, I think it would be more useful.
This is the other thing I was waiting for. Pluto seems to think every talk show, game show, and MTV show is NEWS, and honestly, has just wrecked this feature completely.
I've already considered a way to allowlist sources for these sections, but again, I was just waiting for it to come up.
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Yeah, in the News section right now I see “The Mind of a Chef” from “Food” channel on Pluto, amidst lots of other actual news content.
“NBC Nightly News” is showing twice: once for the currently recording airing, and another for a previous recording that I have included with my “News” Virtual Channel (that includes a mix of news recordings from the past few days.) I am not sure if content from Virtual Channels are meant be included here too, it feels a bit counterintuitive to me. And if it does interfere, I’d consider removing my “News” Virtual Channel entirely since the utility of this feature may supplant it? I do like how the Virtual Channel auto-plays with no interaction required though.
Excluding virtual channels completely seems like the way to go.
Based on this, will content from EPlusTV be included?
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If it tags airings correctly, which I believe it does..
It’s just using the same data and mechanisms that Automatic Channels uses.
Nice:
Thanks to this enhancement, I excluded Pluto and Stirr, and immediately my News & Sports Sections became more accurate and useful. Beautiful!
As of the latest Channels DVR Server pre-release and TestFlight beta, you can now exclude sources from the News and Sports sections independently. Now you can avoid your Pluto channels from shoving unwanted airings the On Now and On Later sections.
These settings are only available server side right now, but will eventually be added to the app.
More Content
Additionally, 2 new settings were added to let you get a little more out of your News and Sports sections.
- Optionally include Sports Talk shows in the Sports Section
- Optionally include News Magazine shows in the News Section
These will not only bring them into On Now and On Later, but also your recently recorded shows. This will also hide them when browsing your main library.
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As of the latest TestFlight beta, Video Groups and Videos now participate in the News and Sports sections. So now you can add any back catalog sports or news items or anything weird and custom that can't normally be indexed, and see them in these new exclusive sections.
Just tag your content correctly and they will show up in the sections. I'm working on some docs now, but here's the gist of the rules it uses:
Sports
shows, episodes, video groups, and videos with the category tag of Sports event will show up. If you have Include Sports Talk enabled, it will pull in any of that content with the genres set to Sports talk.
News
shows, episodes, video groups, and videos with the genres tag of News will show up. If you have Include News Magazines enabled, it will pull in any of that content with the genres set to Newsmagazine.
A reminder that any new videos added to a Video Group will adopt the Video Group's categories and genres.
As of the latest TestFlight beta, you can now adjust the configuration of the News and Sports sections right in the section with the Settings button.
As of the latest TestFlight beta, you can now adjust the excluded sources of your News and Sports sections directly in the app.
Docs went up on the site describing these features:
This was officially shipped with the latest stable releases that went out today:
I’m curious… is there any way to get sports to show up in the Apple TV app in the sports section there?
(This might be confusing but I’m referring to the “TV” app on an Apple TV. The sections are Watch Now, tv+, and then Sports.)
It’s actually pretty nifty and whenever I’m in the sports mood, you can just click it and you’ll see all the sports available and will direct you to the appropriate app.
No, third party developers do not have access to the TV app.
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Sigh… i should’ve figured that would be too good to be true.
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This feature shipped. Closing the topic. Thanks everyone.