Streaming platforms in the UK

BBC iPlayer is the streaming and catch-up service of the UK’s public-service broadcaster. Every BBC channel (One, Two, Three, Four, News, Sport, CBeebies and CBBC) is available live and on-demand with no ads, no ongoing subscription and no paywall, funded instead by the UK TV licence fee. The library spans Happy Valley, Peaky Blinders, Planet Earth and decades of archive. Access is restricted to the UK.

NOW is the Sky Group’s streaming alternative to its traditional satellite package, priced as month-to-month passes with no long-term contract. Three core memberships carve up the catalogue: Entertainment (Sky Atlantic, HBO imports), Cinema (Sky Cinema premieres) and Sports (every Sky Sports channel, also available as a day pass). A paid Boost add-on unlocks 1080p and 5.1 audio. Availability is limited to the UK and Ireland.

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.

Sky Go isn’t a standalone subscription but a companion app bundled with every active Sky TV contract in the UK and Ireland. It mirrors whatever packages already sit on the main account (Sky Cinema, Sky Sports, Sky Atlantic, Sky Max) on mobile, tablet and web, so existing subscribers can follow live channels and on-demand box sets outside the living room. Access is limited to the UK and Ireland; EU portability ended after Brexit (1 January 2021), so a VPN with a UK IP is required outside the region.

BFI Player is a paid British streaming service from the British Film Institute, the London body that launched it in 2013. It concentrates on curated arthouse and independent film, classics, documentaries and titles from the national archive. Alongside a subscription it offers single rentals of newer releases, and opens part of the archive for free. Many titles arrive with essays, interviews and context, closer to a film education than a catalogue. The standalone player with the full catalogue is UK-only (player.bfi.org.uk), and since 2025 the service also reaches Finland and Sweden through Amazon Prime Video Channels. From elsewhere it is geo-blocked unless you connect through a UK server.

Channel 4 is the free, ad-supported streaming service of the British public broadcaster Channel 4, known until 2023 as All 4. It carries the channel’s full catalogue, from Black Mirror, Peep Show and Gogglebox to Taskmaster, It’s a Sin and the Dispatches documentaries, alongside live channels and Formula 1 highlights, all funded by advertising. An optional Channel 4+ tier removes the ad breaks for a few pounds a month. Everything is locked to UK IP addresses, so from abroad you need a British VPN to watch.

Premier Sports is a UK and Ireland sport OTT service built around exclusive broadcast rights. Operated by SSBL Limited, it holds the UK’s only live coverage of LaLiga, alongside the United Rugby Championship, Top 14, Champions Cup, NHL, EIHL, and Scottish Premiership. Available on Sky channels 419 and 420, Virgin Media, as an Amazon channel, and via the STV Player app. Apple TV is not supported.

Freely is a free British live-TV service launched in April 2024 by Everyone TV, owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. It streams broadcast television over your home broadband and Wi-Fi, with no aerial, dish or subscription. The service carries more than 70 live channels plus tens of thousands of hours of on-demand programming in one guide. It comes built into smart TVs from Hisense, TCL, Toshiba and Panasonic, and works through set-top boxes. As the successor to Freeview, it is available in the United Kingdom only.

TNT Sports is Warner Bros. Discovery’s UK sports broadcaster, created in July 2023 when it rebranded the former BT Sport. In the UK it is the exclusive home of the UEFA Champions League (more than 185 matches a season), the Women’s Champions League, the Europa League and the Conference League, alongside selected Premier League games (its rights now run to 2029), the Emirates FA Cup, Gallagher Premiership and European club rugby, MotoGP, UFC and boxing, plus Grand Slam tennis, Grand Tour cycling, snooker and the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. Since 26 March 2025 it has left discovery+: in the UK it now streams on HBO Max, where existing subscribers keep the same login, while in Ireland it stays with partners such as Sky and Virgin Media. It is a UK and Ireland service and is geo-blocked elsewhere, so watching from abroad means a VPN connected back to the UK.

GB News is a British news and opinion channel that runs around the clock. It launched in June 2021 and is run by All Perspectives Ltd, the company tied to Sir Paul Marshall and the Legatum fund. You can watch the live feed for free on the web, in the app, on FAST platforms and on YouTube. An optional paid GB News Membership unlocks extras only, while the core channel stays free. Its presenters include Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, and the channel makes no secret of its right leaning editorial stance. Since January 2026 it has branded itself Britain’s number one on average viewership. The official player is built mainly for audiences in the United Kingdom.

GREAT! Player is a free, ad-supported British streaming service from Narrative Entertainment UK. There is no account to create and no subscription to pay, so you start watching straight away. It gathers the GREAT! channels: GREAT! Movies, GREAT! Action, GREAT! TV, GREAT! Romance, GREAT! Mystery and GREAT! Christmas, leaning into classic Hollywood films, action, romance and nostalgic series. You can reach the library on Freeview, YouView, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung and LG smart TVs. It is available in the United Kingdom only, and is not the American Great American Family.

S4C Clic is the free streaming and catch-up platform of S4C, the Welsh public broadcaster whose channel first went on air in 1982. Programming is primarily in Welsh (Cymraeg), with Welsh and English subtitles, and most shows stay available to catch up on for 35 days. You will find Welsh drama such as Pobol y Cwm, sport including rugby and Sgorio, the Cyw block for children, Newyddion news and live broadcast. The archive and catch-up are free after a free sign-up; a valid UK TV Licence is formally required only for watching live broadcast, the same as any other British broadcaster. The service is available in the UK only.

Talking Pictures TV is an independent, family run British channel built around classic and vintage films and archive television. Noel Cronin of Renown Pictures launched it in May 2015, and today his daughter Sarah Cronin-Stanley and Neill Stanley keep it running. The linear channel airs free on Freeview 82, with Friday nights given over to The Cellar Club. Alongside it sits TPTV Encore, the on demand service that arrived in December 2021. It works on a freemium basis: free with adverts, or £4.99 a month and £49.99 a year for an ad free version. TPTV Encore actively blocks VPNs and rights gates some of its titles by region.

TalkTV is a British news and opinion service built around live debate, interviews and commentary. It belongs to News UK, the Rupert Murdoch media group that sits under News Corp. It started in April 2022 as a conventional television channel, but the linear feed closed in May 2024. These days TalkTV lives on YouTube, on free FAST channels and at talk.tv, which now goes by the name Talk. Everything is free and ad supported, so there is no subscription to worry about. The flagship is The Julia Hartley-Brewer Show, while Piers Morgan content moved to YouTube and a weekly cut has aired on Channel 5 since September 2025. What you can watch may vary from one country to another.

That’s TV is a free, ad-supported British network of nostalgia and classic-television channels, run by That’s Media Ltd under Daniel Cass and based in Manchester. The first station launched in 2014, and today the service broadcasts nationally on Freeview channel 56, mixing archive comedy, vintage drama and local news from around the country. In February 2026 its music output shifted onto FAST platforms such as Pluto TV, Rakuten TV and LG Channels, and the original linear music channels closed at the same time. Everything streams at no cost with adverts, and there is no account or login to set up. The official home is thats.tv. The lineup serves a British audience, so viewers outside the UK may meet regional restrictions.

Together TV is a free British channel built around community and social impact, with a warm, feel good lineup. It started in 2000 as the Community Channel and took the name Together TV in 2018. Ownership sits with the Community Channel, a community benefit society backed by its supporters. The schedule mixes documentaries, real life stories, wellbeing programmes and classic British titles. It also runs the Diverse Film Fund, which commissions original short documentaries and has earned a BAFTA. Everything is completely free, with no subscription, and you can find it on Freeview channel 83. The player and apps, however, work only inside the UK.

F1 TV is the official streaming service of the Formula One Group (owned by Liberty Media), launched in 2018 and distributed directly by the championship itself. Two tiers split the product: Access (onboard cameras, team radio, highlights and archive) and Pro (every live session from every race weekend, F2, F3 and Porsche Supercup support races, plus the live timing and telemetry widget). Pro is available in 118 markets, Access in even more.

ITVX is the streaming platform of UK commercial broadcaster ITV, launched in December 2022 as a rebuild of the old ITV Hub. It combines a free, ad-supported tier (live ITV channels plus catch-up for shows like Love Island, Coronation Street and I’m a Celebrity) with an ad-free Premium tier that adds exclusive box sets and early access. Roughly 40 million registered accounts make it one of the busiest UK catch-up services.

Sky Sports is the sports arm of Comcast-owned Sky Group and has shaped the look and language of British sports broadcasting since 1990. Premier League is the flagship, but the portfolio also covers Formula 1, Test and T20 cricket, rugby union and league, golf and select tennis. There’s no standalone subscription; access comes either bundled inside a Sky TV contract or month-by-month through NOW Sports.

STV Player is the streaming and catch-up platform of Scottish broadcaster STV (STV Group plc), launched in 2009. It carries the live STV channel and STV News alongside a catalogue of more than 3,000 hours, from Scottish news to licensed British drama and box sets. A free, ad-supported tier sits next to the paid STV Player+, which removes the advertising. Available only in the UK.

UKTV Play — rebranded as “U” in July 2024 — is the free streaming platform of the UKTV group, today run by BBC Studios. Launched in 2014, it pulls live feeds and catch-up archives from the group’s channels (U&Dave, U&Gold, U&Drama, U&Alibi, U&W, U&Yesterday) into a single app. The draw is British comedy, panel formats like Taskmaster and Would I Lie to You, cosy crime and history documentary. Ad-supported and limited to UK IP addresses.

MUBI is the streaming service for viewers who plan their week around the Cinémathèque rather than the multiplex. Instead of an overflowing library it runs a rotating selection, a curated archive and a growing pipeline of theatrical releases the company distributes itself. Recent festival winners, retrospectives and contemporary auteurs dominate the schedule, and the service ships without ads on monthly or annual billing.

DAZN is a sports-first streaming service built to compete with traditional pay-TV sports channels. The schedule shifts dramatically from country to country: in Germany it carries the Bundesliga and Champions League matches, in Italy it owns the majority of Serie A, in Japan it runs baseball and boxing. The global side of DAZN remains its combat sports division, where it has become one of the biggest buyers of marquee boxing pay-per-view events.

Netflix didn’t invent streaming but it set the rules everyone else now plays by. With 325 million paying subscribers across 190 countries and a stable of shows like Squid Game, Stranger Things and Wednesday, it still defines what mainstream streaming looks like. Recent pushes into live sports and ad-supported plans show the company is willing to bend its own playbook when the market demands it.