Free TV

Although watching live or nearly live television requires a television licence, owning a television set does not.

The mass availability of broadband, together with games consoles or computers that can connect to a television, means that a television set can be used for much more than watching live television.

Internet Television

All of the major UK television networks offer content online, all of which can be watched without a licence (provided it is not being transmitted live).

  • The BBC provides iPlayer, which contains archived TV and radio programmes.
  • ITV provide the ITV Player, which has a 30 day archive of TV programmes. Their ITV Local service also provides local stations.
  • Channel 4 provide 4oD, which contains a mixture of free and paid TV programmes as well as films from Film4.
  • Channel Five provide the Demand Five service, which contains a mixture of free and paid-for TV programmes.

Although it was created by the BBC, iPlayer does not require a licence.

Internet Video

YouTube is by far the most popular video-sharing site, and plays over 100 million videos per day (adding over 65,000 new videos each day).

This includes television programmes, music videos, news, or simply home-made content (of varying quality). If you own a PS3 or Wii, you can also watch YouTube directly from your console.

Some other sites include:

Software such as Miro can also be used to watch and organise free video programmes and podcasts on your computer, while iTunes can also be used to purchase TV programmes or films online.