Freely Considers Launch of Streaming Box for UK Broadband TV Service
Broadband-based live TV streaming service Freely, which is supported by major UK TV broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 etc.) and is designed to be an evolution of the existing Freeview service (inc. Freeview Play and Freesat), has confirmed that they’re finally “considering” the development of a streaming media device.
Freeview Play is now a somewhat dated platform and one that remains centred around on-demand content, while Freely viewers will be able to easily browse and watch live UK TV channels together with on-demand content streamed straight to their smart TV via the internet (IPTV) – without the need for an aerial connection or new set-top-box (depending upon device support).
Just to be clear. Freely, which launched over a year ago (here), will not be replacing the Freeview and Freesat platforms and should, at least for now, be seen as more of a complement – a different kind of service that helps to make broadcast TV more accessible. The change is important because the age of traditional terrestrial TV signals, which came via the airwaves, is expected to gradually come to an end as gigabit-capable broadband nears almost universal UK coverage by 2030 (currently c.86%).
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However, one of the biggest roadblocks to adoption of Freely’s platform today remains its limited availability, which has seen the new service deployed across a variety of new TV sets but not much else (some major TV manufacturers are also still missing from their supported device list). But customers of most existing internet-connected TVs, as well as popular TV streaming boxes and sticks, have all been excluded.
The good news is that yesterday’s speech by Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC, at the Lowry Theatre in Salford, appeared to confirm that Freely was finally looking at the possibility of developing its own streaming box to support the service.
Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC, said:
“At the BBC we have been working hard to build digital platforms and content to meet changing audience needs, enriching our offer and welcoming the possibilities of a post broadcast world.
We think now is the time to confirm an IP switchover in the 2030s, setting out the conditions and providing certainty to ensure success.
There are huge benefits, financially and socially, and we want to play our part, working with Government, with our sector and beyond to help – building trust that a digital world can work for all. The BBC can play a key role in innovating to ensure that the new world is inclusive and accessible.
To help, we want to double down on Freely as a universal free service to deliver live TV over broadband. And we are considering a streaming media device with Freely capabilities built in, with a radically simplified user interface specifically designed to help those yet to benefit from IP services.”
The big caveats above are Tim’s use of the word “considering” (not particularly definitive) and the fact that they seem to be looking at putting out their own streaming box, rather than talking about getting Freely on to existing TVs and streaming devices. Still, at least they’re talking about it now, which is a step in the right direction.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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They don’t need a box.
They need an app.
They could have launched that years ago.
Agreed. Just make an app for AppleTV’s TVOS.
I agree. I’d use this on my Apple TV and even my iPad. I don’t need another box.
Exactly this, make an app for AndroidTV, AppleTV, Roku, AmazonTV (Android). But Tim Davie is going to spend public money to build a box that nobody is going to buy in the same way as none of the major TV manufactures adopted it.
They did. They had Project Kangeroo. Ofcom made them ditch it and it eventually got spun off as You View isntead. OfCom were concerned on effect to new entrants (i.e. streamers). Now, we have situation where all British TV could end because of streamers, and it’s very serious at the moment, ultimately ending up in a diet of American soup to consume.
Correct
An box or an app for Amazon Firestick would be welcome. Most houses have multiple TV sets these days & replacing all of them is not something most people would wish to do.
Also all the manufacturers of TVs seem to come from the budget end of the market (not that I am suggesting there is wrong with them). Samsung is still the market leader and its name is missing from their list of manufacturers.
This is progress, but existing Freeview Play TVs should still be updated to support it in my view. My TV is from 2022 iirc and it’s just insane that I’ve had one update for it and it could probably easily run whatever Freely needs.
The BBC and the other television channels are actively contributing to planned obsolescence at the moment.
We need a freely recorder so we can record up to three channels over the Internet on to a hard drive or DvD recorder.
This allows people to watch programs at a later date
Broadcasters and 3rd party rights holders don’t want you to record. They want catch up services where the can measure popularity of viewed programmes.
Freely is DRMd up to the hill, using certificates to even access the streams on approved devices only. That’s why no app will be forthcoming.
It’s about locking content down and avoiding transmission costs that streaming platforms don’t have, as well as enhanced viewing data on programmes.
They also don’t want you recording and skipping the annoying adverts.
Why would you record this crap if they keep repeating it all week long?
DVD Recorder? It’s not 2003. Just use catchup.
EETV doesn’t let you skip ads when watching ITV – joke really
I already have several streaming boxes around my house which I’m happy with. I don’t want ot need another box or TV, but I’d gladly use their service if it was an app instead of something requiring their proprietary hardware like it is now.
Just release an app for god sake. Doomed to failure because you have to buy a new device which is designed to deliberately slow growth.
Apple TV, fire sticks, and a few others select platforms.
The lack of apps just feels like they don’t want to pay for the distribution network costs.
Too little too late, it’s already falling into obscurity as rampant uncontrolled piracy take hold in the market.
Because they took too long I’ve got a loft aerial feeding an IPTV gateway. Because even if they did bring out an app they’d somehow cripple it and eventually freely will just be another failed venture.
That’s the point. Aerials and sat dishes consigned to dustbin around 2035.
Point: TV is not free in the UK.
Did you work that out all by yourself?
Any live channel, from any broadcaster or online streamer, whether IP or over the air requires a license as per government mandate.
This news item is about Freely, not the TV license. The channels, public service and commercial, are free withput further subscription on this platform once a license for the TV is paid as per government requirement.
@anonymous It’s spelt licence in UK English when used as a noun and I suspect Fara82Light was simply making the point that there’s no such thing as free TV; you and I fund it either through the TV licence in the case of the BBC (and partly S4C) or indirectly by purchasing advertised goods and service.
Live TV is not free as you need a TV licence, but there are many streaming services that don’t need a TV licence and they are free. Well kind of, so you still pay for the advertising I suppose because you buy products that are advertised. But at the point of viewing they are free.
ITV, channel 4 and 5 all have free streaming services, no licence required and there is Pluto and Tubi, plus others that are free, you may find something interesting on them
What is the point of (pseudo) freely? They seem to be wanting to fail at *all* costs.
Just an app is all that’s needed. We don’t need more tech waste.
Freely want people to experience the proper service i.e. live TV and on demand. To do this the hardware must support hbbTV 2.0.3 (which most don’t) so it’s not as easy as just creating an app for existing tech
There is also certificates used for underlying access to the streams using only approved hardware.
The people who just cry “app” won’t accept that it’s treated as TV middleware rather than just an app.
I guess one big advantage of a box is, that you can have common remote controls. If a user wants to change channel they can enter a channel number, if they want subtitles there’s a button etc.
This might make it easier when doing education for the technophobes, and make it feel more like Freeview.
Given the problems still present with the Arris manufactured Freesat boxes (HDR flag permanently set, unpopulated TV guides, paused playback working when it wants to, long start up times, broken Dolby Digital and so on), I wouldn’t trust these guys to come up with a hardware solution. My Smart TV (LG) already has many streaming platforms and apps already on it so why not just go down the application route rather than generate more sub-standard e-waste ?
I just wanted to say, I was extremely sceptical about freely. I went to numerous places looking for demos etc. But when I finally bought a TV with Freely I was amazed. In my area I could not have an out door aerial. So had to use Virgin or Sky just to use normal channels, I never even watched any of the other content. Sky and Virgin kept upping their prices every year. At one stage I was paying 110 pounds a month just to watch BBC on top of the licence fee.! After getting freely and watching for 25 minutes I immediately cancelled Sky !!! and will not be going back.
Have they enforced a BBC D.O.G. on the screen on BBC1 or BBC2 when using IP delivered channel on Freely?
They tried this with first Digital transmissions and did a u-turn after complaints. Wondering if 26 years later they try again….
So if all TV aerials are going to be obsolete by 2035 and goes to streaming what happens when your internet goes down you can’t watch anything
My Guess is that the basic public service channels will remain on freeview after then but occupying only the bottom bit of the spectrum (Channels 21-34).
And what most people won’t realise is, it will be SD versions of BBC1,BBC2/ITV/C4/C5 way before then to “entice people to the benefit of an IP platform”.
This has already started on Freesat. U&Yesterday/U&Drama/U&Watch were briefly HD and now SD, despite telling people of older Sky boxes to upgrade to an HD capable one. Now, this was true because they went from DVB-S to DVB-S2; but in public eyes, they may have upgraded only to be met by SD channels again, albeit from DVB-S2 transmission. For now, subscription channels like U&Gold are still HD.
On Freely and Sky Stream, U&Yesterday, U&Watch, U&Drama are HD still, with no intention to convert to SD.
U&Drama is SD on Sky Steeam.
should have launched with it, no one is buying a new tv for this,
better yet, it should’ve been an app for google/apple/fire tv
Absolutely, in the past they have always started with a set top box (remember Ondigital) then built it into TVs later.
I expect the transition to deliver everything over the Internet is going to drag out. Fibre, 5G and Satellite (Starlink, OneWeb) is slowly plodding on and expanding. Eventually there will be convergence between the three technologies to consistently and reliably deliver the Internet throughout the UK (it may take decades at the current pace).
Those who cite receiving a phone call via copper line or watching a live broadcast over the airwaves as more reliable may be seemingly unaware the phone call or live transmission mostly likely travelled over the Internet (in whole or at least in part) all the way up to the “last mile” – that is to your nearest Telephone Exchange or TV Aerial Mast Transmitter.
As per usual, people perceive technology through the point of use, with no perception on how things are changing on the back end.
I am in my 40s but can already see the change (having grown up in the 80s without any Internet). Young people are making their own TV shows, recorded via Smartphone and broadcasted via YouTube, Tiktok and the like. They make phone calls to the friends world wide for free via WhatsApp. The old way of doing things must seem absurd to them, and I really feel the people who run Freely are so out of touch to move so slowly, their are aiding their own obsolescence.
complement Freerview? No it don’t, if you set a Freely TV up as Freely, Freeview vanishes, and you don’t get all the channels that Freeview have on Freely. The only way you can get those channels back is to reset the TV to factory and set it for Freeview.
From what I have heard about Freely, it is not a great system and even if there is a Freely box, why would anyone buy it?
That’s only because not all are on board yet or done the work for ASI to IP delivery.
This is like Sky Glass, a niche product, so Sky Stream Puck had to be produced. For Freely to bw widely used it obviously needs a streaming device or app on the main streaming devices, e.g. Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick. It’s baffling that Freely is “considering” this.
I got a Freely tv when my high end Samsung gave up. Every Freely tv is cheap and nasty. Low grade made in Turkey, even the Panasonic one I have.
The firmware is full of bugs. Been helping IT by identifying them.
Unless better quality manufacturer include it the only option is dongle /set top box. I think an app would be quite slow as apps would have to run inside it.
Freely TVs are available from several manufacturers based in many countries. You could always look at other brands.
Freely really needs to add an android/iOS app to the frey, the fact they started shipping on new TVs was the wrong thing to do in the first place, most users of Freeview have a Roku or Firestick so penetrating would be far more better if apps were bought out for these devices to
Interesting that Freely have licensed TiVo to manufacture a set top box for the service, but the company has been gagged by an NDA,
But it certainly looks like a Freely branded TiVo box will be announced around Christmas!
As said needs to be an app not hardware. Although maybe set minimum hardware requirements. One for the reasons Freely experience could be bad is the hardware and o/s built into the “Freely TVs”. Tried a few different streaming boxes / freesat / freeview boxes in trying to move away from Sky. Not until you move away do you appreciate the work that went into and the quality of the Sky boxes. Have landed on Apple TV 4Ks for me.