Owned by Paramount Skydance, the British broadcaster My5, now branded simply 5, has been delivering free-to-air television to UK living rooms for years. Viewers tune in daily for acclaimed dramas like Anne Boleyn and Dalgliesh, plus live sport headlined by NFL action, T20 cricket, and snooker. The whole digital hub runs without a subscription fee. Watching My5 abroad, however, brings everything to a halt: step outside the United Kingdom and you hit an immediate geo-block message. Licensing rules tie distribution strictly to UK connections, so the platform screens out foreign IP addresses automatically and tells you the content is not available in your region.
Getting past this barrier is straightforward with Surfshark. By routing your traffic through an encrypted server in Great Britain, your device picks up a temporary British IP, and the streaming service reads you as a local viewer. The full catalogue unlocks at once: every drama, documentary, and live channel opens on your laptop, phone, or smart TV. Setup takes only minutes, playback runs up to 720p, and because this is an ad-supported free service, you never pay a monthly fee. Just pick a provider with stable UK servers.
Tested weekly by our team. Green: works, amber: partial, red: blocked.
| VPN Service | Price | My5 (Channel 5) | Tested | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 SurfsharkBEST | From $1.78/mo | ✓ Works | July 4 | Try it |
 ExpressVPN | From $2.79/mo | ✓ Works | July 4 | Open |
 NordVPN | From $2.99/mo | ✓ Works | July 6 | Open |
 Private Internet Access | From $1.79/mo | ✓ Works | July 5 | Open |
 CyberGhost | From $1.75/mo | ✓ Works | July 2 | Open |
 IPVanish | From $2.19/mo | ✓ Works | July 3 | Open |
 ProtonVPN | From $3.59/mo | ✓ Works | July 5 | Open |
✓ Works✓ Works✓ Works✓ Works✓ Works✓ Works✓ WorksTakes about 2 minutes. Works on your phone, tablet, TV, PC, or laptop.
My5 (Channel 5) is only available in the United Kingdom. To access it from anywhere else, use a premium VPN.
My5 (Channel 5) is blocked in the United States, in Australia, in Canada, in New Zealand and in Ireland, plus in 188 more countries. To access it, use a premium VPN like Surfshark.
My5 is the free streaming portal of UK broadcaster Channel 5, operated since 2014 by Paramount Skydance (formerly Paramount Global, after Viacom bought the channel in 2014). Alongside the main channel, the app carries sister networks 5Star, 5USA, 5Action and 5Select, with a library that spans soaps like Neighbours, factual programming and licensed US drama. Everything is ad-supported and restricted to UK IP addresses.
3 tips from our My5 (Channel 5) testing team · Updated June 24, 2026
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Everything you need to know before subscribing to My5 (Channel 5).
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