Free live TV – UK channels
Our team put some serious efforts to find the best UK internet television and video services, available for watching on your PC or laptop, via internet, for free.
Following list of UK TV via internet channels and services will be updated and moderated.
If you want to watch UK live television channels on the internet on your computer, or some kind of video on demand services, you have to know that, for example, BBC TV productions are paid for by the UK television license fee, as well as rights agreements with third parties, mean that all BBC iPlayer TV services are currently only accessible from IP addresses allocated to the UK. A lot of people outside the UK bypass that rule by buying a virtual private network account with an IP address located in the UK.
On the other hand, radio programs can be accessed globally, with the exception of a few programs, mainly sports broadcasts that are affected by rights issues. One quirk is that mobile devices such as the iPod Touch and iPhone cannot access radio overseas via BBC iPlayer whereas computers can.
BBC iPlayer is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC. From February 2011, the BBC iPlayer includes links to other programs such as: ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, Channel 4, E4, More 4, Film 4, Channel 5, Fiver, Five USA and S4C. The feature was added to the search function and the channels function. When a user clicks on a program by another broadcaster, there are redirected to that broadcasters catch up service.
An international version of the iPlayer will be launched during 2011 after receiving the approval of the BBC Trust. BBC iPlayer will be available on iPad devices in selected overseas markets in the middle of 2011, starting with the US. BBC will probably charge a monthly subscription fee to access the on-demand application, partially to get audiences “used to the service”, but also to generate additional value from the service in terms of the user data that it gives us.
Sky Player is an online television service from Sky and this service allows users to watch live TV via internet and on demand video content from their PC, Mobile or Xbox 360 via a broadband or Wi-Fi internet connection. Users can access to on demand content such as sports highlights, latest news, movies and TV programs. Bad thing is that content is viewable for a limited amount of time and is protected by digital rights management software provided by Microsoft, and therefore cannot be copied to disc or viewed beyond the date carried by its license. The service is available with no extra fee to existing Sky TV customers, with accessible content depending on the subscriber’s Sky package. Non-Sky TV customers can access the service by subscribing on a pay-per-view basis.
There are currently 32 live TV channels on Sky Player:
Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, G.O.L.D, Sky Living, Sky Livingit, Sky Arts1, Sky Movies Premiere, Sky Movies Family, Sky Movies Showcase, Sky Movies Action and Adventure, MTV, Sky Sports 1-4, Sky sports News, British Eurosport 1 and 2, ESPN, ESPN Classic, Sky News, Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild, History, Eden, Crime and Investigation, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Nickelodeon, Disney XD, Disney Channels and Nick JR.
Demand 5 is video on demand service offered by Channel 5. The service offered Windows Media Video format downloads of the US imports CSI, House and Grey’s Anatomy. Individual episodes of these series could be ‘rented’ with some episodes available 7 days before they appear on TV.
Demand 5 content is also available on Facebook, SeeSaw, Sony Bravia Internet Video, TV.com, Virgin Media and YouTube.
ITV Player is next online video on demand service available in the UK. The service offers a lot of programs and some sports programming is available to watch again via the service and the others such as imports and movies are not currently available due to rights issues, and children’s programming in particular is generally unavailable. Programs are available for 30 days on the site after being first shown on ITV.
SeeSaw is the next UK Internet television service, owned by Arqiva, and started in the UK on 17 February 2010. SeeSaw also started premium service offering 1,000 hours of premium content. The platform has already agreed a deal with MTV Networks for Comedy Central shows such as South Park and MTV properties such as The Hills, My Super Sweet 16 and Laguna Beach. A range of BBC Worldwide shows are also now be available to rent. SeeSaw made an additional arrangement with NBC Universal Television Distribution to make shows such as House, 30 Rock and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit available on its video on-demand website.
If you want to consider more solutions to watch UK based live TV channels check out our latest post about live TV on laptop software. With this software solution you can watch more than 500 UK channels.
