Freely Sees Surge in UK People Watching 2026 FIFA World Cup via Broadband
Broadband-based live TV streaming service Freely, which is backed by the major UK broadcasters and is an evolution – not yet a replacement – for the existing Freeview platform (inc. Freeview Play and Freesat), has reported seeing a “significant increase” in the number of people watching the 2026 FIFA World Cup over broadband.
The latest viewing data, which has been sourced from Barb, shows that the share of viewing from broadband-only homes for England’s group-stage matches “more than quadrupled” compared with the prior 2022 tournament. During the tournament, Freely also grew to more than 2 million monthly active users and recorded its biggest viewing day since launch, highlighting its progress towards “becoming the UK’s largest TV device platform by 2030“.
Last month Freely said their platform now had well over 1 million users (up from 500,000 from Sep-Dec 2025) and the number of Freeview homes in 2034 is forecast to fall to 860,000 (here). Freely expects to be in 10.5 million UK households by 2034. The Government recently proposed to switch-off terrestrial TV signals in either 2034 or 2044 as part of a wider change to reflect the move to internet-based streaming (here).
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The CEO of Everyone TV, Jonathan Thompson, said:
“Major sporting events like the World Cup bring millions of people together for a shared live viewing experience. As one of the UK’s biggest TV events, it offers a clear picture of how audiences are choosing to watch. Compared with 2022, significantly more viewing took place over the internet, highlighting the growing role of broadband in delivering free television and the changing ways audiences are watching live TV.”
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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I always wondered how freely intend to replace freeview.. only available in a subset of TVs (crucially not Sony or LG which must be a huge part of the market) and the only available devices are a one that requires a subscription to something called ‘pleio’ (freely paid channels?) and some random chinese box they want £90 for.
Meanwhile freeview is absolutely everywhere.
*available absolutely everywhere until they turn it off 😉
The BBC are supposed to be making a simplified box that doesn’t have all the other fluff. But I think ultimately they just need to make an app for existing devices. I’m guessing the BBC will be keen to base it on their iPlayer tech!
In the same way that Freeview replaced terrestrial TV. Back then you had to buy a box until TV’s came with it built-in. The Freely boxes are a one-off cost, as were Freeview. Pleio does have an optional subscription to extra services, but are not required to use Freely.
The’chinese’ box is a British box from Manhattan.
LG and Samsung don’t want Freely as it competes with their own IPTV services and are looking into making their own.
I suspect Sony will jump on the band wagon or go down the Samsung/LG route.
If when you say some random Chinese box you mean the Manhattan Aero then Manhattan are a British company even if manufacturing is done in China. The box was only £70 at launch but thanks to AI data centre build out component prices have gone through the roof & they were forced to raise the price.
Ironically – despite Youfibre going down during the WC – Freely on a back up connection was the most reliable stream I could get.
Significant increase” in the number of people watching the 2026 FIFA World Cup over broadband? What are they basing that on? The last world cup, a lot of people would have been on ADSL,
So once again, trying to make things sound better than they are.
No doubt a lot of people did what it on Freely, but a Freely TV will default to Freely. I just wonder what people thought of the quality of it.
The last world cup was only 4 years ago. ADSL had largely been replaced by FTTC by then and gigabit-capable broadband was already available to 69.24% of the UK. So while the market has changed, broadband connections able to handle TV streaming weren’t a problem for the vast majority of people in 2022.
A USO 10 megabit ADSL connection should in theory be enough to run a HD stream.
The Freely stream may be sent out without direct charge but to watch it legally you have to have a TV license £180 annually therefore the statement as quoted “highlighting the growing role of broadband in delivering free television” is untrue. Similarly you also have to pay for your internet connection; I,m unaware of any free internet services.
Yeah stuff that.
Since a significant majority are paying for their TV licence according to the latest statistics and most people have broadband it’s a bit of a nit picking exercise.
and some ISPs like OFNL had capacity issues.
And still a 40 second delay behind broadcast, even more if it’s in “stunning 4K”
Streaming is great but it’s not ready for live sport streaming just yet, O know it will get there but I’ll stick to DTT OR digital satellite for mu live sport.
For as long as you can….
I see that Freely advertising is quoting a minimum spec of 10Mbps for the service. Such a connection speed is the stuff of fantasy in these parts. Accepted that Freeview is probably doomed as a commercially viable platform as advertising revenue pivots online, but the Achilles heel for the 2034 closure date is going to be internet connection speeds and reliability in rural areas. Last time I checked, rural fibre availability was still below 50%, the rollout was slowing down and some Project Gigabit contracts were being gutted. Alternatives to fibre aren’t necessarily workable everywhere. Appreciate that 2034 is still 8 years away but I’m not seeing a joined up plan that makes Freeview closure by then possible without impact to quite a few.