TiVo Expand Support for Freely’s UK Live TV Streaming Service to New Devices
Smart TV Platform TiVo has secured certification to deploy support for broadband-based live TV streaming service Freely across a new category of streaming-only devices, which could help spread the service’s availability to a whole host of new hardware in the near future (similar to Netgem TV’s new PLEIO box – here, or Humax’s box – here).
The TiVo operating software (OS) should be quite familiar by now and it’s already powering some dedicated internet-connected TV integrations of Freely. But the new certification, granted by Everyone TV, will extend this so that TiVo OS with Freely support can also be used on external streaming devices.
“It expands consumer choice, gives retailers and [broadband] ISPs new ways to delight customers with a frictionless live TV experience, and extends the reach of UK broadcasters via IP,” said Gabriel Cosgrave, TiVo’s EMEA General Manager. Freely has been slowly improving their device support since the service first went live in April 2024 (here) and so today’s news looks set to continue that trend.
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At the time of writing there’s no indication of precisely when or which TiVo OS equipped streaming devices will be the first to add Freely support, but we’ll no doubt see a few crop up sometime during 2026. “Introducing Freely to these devices means more UK households can easily access and navigate free TV in the streaming age,” said the CEO of Everyone TV, Jonathan Thompson.
One interesting question mark over this is whether some existing TiVo equipped devices may also soon be able to get this via a simple firmware upgrade, although so far Freely has tended to stress the importance of only deploying on new rather than existing hardware.
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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About time it finally got opened up to more devices, I’ve noticed a few TVs with Roku built-in have Freely also, seems strange having 2 OS’s on a TV though? Really they should allow app development for Android devices also, but slowly slowly as they say!
Android, IOS & Firestick need apps. If they want to convert everyone from DTV to streaming they need to make it as widely available as possible. It’s not just about the delivery method TV is delivered anymore, it’s also about the way it’s consumed.
Freely isn’t an operating system, same way having Freeview or Freesat on your TV, its a component of the existing OS not a second one.
What is the nature and focus of the certification required by Everyone TV for Freely?
Whilst it’s not specifically “Freely” there is a great app called TVLauncher for Apple tvOS (iOS and iPadOS) which does a pretty good job of giving a fully integrated guide for all the standard Freeview channels (so long as you have the apps installed) and NowTV live channels in once place. The new app has massively improved the experience of starting live streams in the individual apps (no mean feat). As I say, it’s not official Freely but if you’ve got an AppleTV, it’s a great way little app to bridge the gap whilst Freely decides if it’s going to support devices like AppleTV 4K.
@ Neil:
That is very interesting, but it is not what I was asking about.
@Far2329Light: Freely certification is both about meeting technical standards (such as adaptive streaming, DRM, metadata integration and Freely’s unified UX) and ensuring a consistent user experience across certified devices. Each device or operating system must properly integrate Freely’s IPTV streams, electronic programme guide (EPG) and broadcaster apps (namely BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4 and 5).
Initially some TVs were certified and we’ve now got the Netgem Pleio puck. The certification of TiVo for devices is the same TiVo OS platform for TVs, now extended to cover streaming‑only devices (puck‑style boxes, HDMI sticks, etc.) I expect that this additional certification would have been a rigorous process as Everyone TV needs to know that TiVo OS can handle Freely on low-powered sticks as well as TVs.
@ Roger_Gooner:
Thank you very much, that is a very informative answer.
Sorry I hit reply on the wrong thread! Score 1 for not putting glasses on when replying to threads!