Streaming refers to watching live TV broadcasts, listening to radio stations live, music or watching the video in ‘real-time’, instead of downloading a file to your computer and watching it later.
With internet videos and webcasts of live events, there is no file to download, just a continuous stream of data. Some broadcasters prefer streaming because it is hard for most users to save the content and distribute it illegally.
Files encoded for streaming are often highly compressed to use as little bandwidth as possible. If there is an interruption due to congestion on the internet, the audio will drop out or the screen will go blank. To minimize the problem, your device or computer stores a ’buffer’ of data that has already been received.
If there’s a drop-out, the buffer goes down for a while but the video is not interrupted. If there is no more data in the buffer, it will usually stop and display a message – ’buffering’ – while it catches up.
Freely
Freely is a British free-to-air IPTV service launched in 2024 by Everyone TV, a joint venture between the country’s public broadcasters BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5. The service offers the ability to watch live television and on demand media from the main broadcasters while seamlessly switching between them in a unified electronic programme guide (EPG).
Freely streams television over a broadband internet connection and therefore does not require a television aerial. The service is expected to gradually replace Freeview in the long-term.
Freely is primarily available as a built-in feature on some Smart TVs from specific manufacturers. It is not currently available on Samsung or LG TVs.
Built-in Brands: Hisense, Bush, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp, and TCL.
External Devices: Freely streaming device are also available, the Manhattan Aero and the Netgem PLEIO, which plug into any TV via HDMI.
Website: www.freely.co.uk
BBC Television
The BBC broadcasts all of its television channels as live streams. These broadcasts are only a few seconds behind the terrestrial and satellite broadcasts.
All of the BBC’s channels are available as live streams on their website.
BBC live streams are also available through the BBC iPlayer app on iOS and Android, Smart TVs and through Freely.
Channels
BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies, BBC News Channel, BBC Parliament, BBC Scotland, BBC Alba.
Website: www.bbc.co.uk
ITV
All of ITV’s channels are available as live streams through their website.
ITVX is a ad-supported video-on-demand streaming service operated by ITV. The service offers original content from the broadcaster, as well as some exclusive and licensed programming.
ITV live streams are also available through the ITVX app on iOS and Android, Smart TVs and through Freely.
NOTE: All live ITV streams are restricted to UK only IP addresses (Geoblocked).
Channels
ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV Quiz, ITV Kids, Essex TV, The Chase, Love Island, ITV Classics, ITV Signed, Saturday Night, Every Night, Comedy 24/7, Midsummer Murders and Vera.
Website: www.itv.com
STV (Scotland) is available as a live stream through STV Player. STV offer a catchup service (STV Player), offering much of ITV’s programming and some content exclusive to STV Player such as Brookside.
Website: https://player.stv.tv
Channel 4
Channel 4 streams are availabe through their website.
Channel 4 live streams are also available through the Channel 4 app on iOS and Android, Smart TVs and through Freely.
NOTE: All live Channel 4 streams are restricted to UK only IP addresses (Geoblocked).
Channels
Channel 4, E4, More4, 4Seven, Film4
Channel 4 also offers the following channels exclusivly through Freely: 4Reality, 4Homes, and 4Life.
Website: www.channel4.com
5 (Channel 5)
5 streams are availabe through their website.
5 live streams are also available through the 5 app on iOS and Android, Smart TVs and through Freely.
NOTE: All live 5 streams are restricted to UK only IP addresses (Geoblocked).
Channels
5, 5USA, 5STAR, 5ACTION, 5SELECT, 5Police Interceptors, 5Cops, 5A&E, 5Crime, 5Medical, TRUE CRIME UK and many other nieche channels.
5 is the name of video-on-demand services offered by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, operator of TV channel 5, in the United Kingdom.
The service is ad-supported and provided over-the-top to various different consumer devices.
Website: www.channel5.com
Radio Streaming
Streaming technology is used to distribute Internet radio, typically using an audio codec. Streaming audio formats include MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Windows Media Audio, RealAudio, and HE-AAC (or AAC+).
Audio data is continuously transmitted serially (streamed) over the local network or internet in TCP or UDP packets, then reassembled at the receiver and played a second or two later. The delay is called lag and is introduced at several stages of digital audio broadcasting.
Bitrate
Bitrate is defined as the number of data points used to approximate the true waveform. Obviously, the higher the number, the more accurately the waveform is approximated. Radio streams are encoded (compressed) to a ‘bitrate’.
The bitrate simply refers to the audio quality of the stream; this is measured in ‘kbps – kilobits per second’ or ‘k’ for short.
Frequency
Sampling frequency also impacts fidelity. The sampling frequency is essentially the number of times the sound event is quantized within a given time period. Sampling frequencies are specified in KiloHertz (KHz), a term meaning samples per second. The key in understanding how sampling frequency affects fidelity is the Nyquist sampling theorem. Basically, when applied to audio signals the Nyquist theorem states that the highest possible pitch in the sound is one-half that of the sampling frequency.
Mono/Stereo
Most listeners automatically assume that stereo will sound better, however, this is not always the case.
Using stereo on a lower bitrate will cause muffled audio, 48kbps in stereo would mean listening to 24 kbp/s per channel. This decreases the listener’s experience, with mono it would sound better.
On 128 kbp/s, you are listening to 64 kbp/s per channel. This means the overall quality will be improved offering a better quality stream.
BBC Radio
All of the BBC’s national, local and regional stations along with the BBC World Service, are available to listen to live on the internet (rights permitting), with appropriate media player software.
It is also possible to listen to BBC Radio services via the internet without having to log on to a computer. The easiest way to do this is via WiFi or Internet Radio. These radios pick up radio stations streaming on the internet via a broadband connection to the radio.
There are no UK only IP restrictions on BBC radio, for more information and direct links to the various BBC stations see BBC National Radio.
The easiest way to listen is through the BBC iPlayer.
The BBC have changed the way they provide radio streams. This change is part of a wider project for a new way of delivering online radio from source to the products that users consume, known as Audio Factory.
Audio Factory was designed to keep BBC services available, make them more resilient and ensure a consistent experience.
All BBC services are now available in HLS and HDS using the AAC codec. By the summer of 2015, the BBC hopes to have these streams available in the non-proprietary DASH format.
HTTP streams are available in both UK and international variants, which allows those in the UK to continue to enjoy BBC Sports coverage.
International and mobile listeners will only have 96 / 48 kbp/s HE-AAC v1 streams available, again only in HDS/HLS with the 96kbps probably for Radio 3.
Visit the BBC Sounds Website for information on reception and programming.
UK Radioplayer
Radioplayer is an online audio player which gives you access to live, on-demand and podcast radio from hundreds of stations in the UK.
Radioplayer is a not for profit company founded by the BBC, Global Radio, Guardian Media Group, Absolute Radio and RadioCentre to serve radio and its audiences by making listening easy.
This Web app is designed to bring the BBC’s own publicly funded radio stations together with a wide range of commercial stations, making them available together for the first time.
Rather than offer a directory of the stations, the BBC has opted for a simple, free-text search box.
Users can search for a station, a location, a specific programme or presenter, or a subject that they’ are interested in. Radioplayer is a search engine for UK radio, with the ability to listen right from a pop-up browser window.
Radioplayer is a not for profit company founded by the BBC, Global Radio, Guardian Media Group, Absolute Radio and RadioCentre to serve radio and its audiences by making listening easy.
The Radioplayer system aimed to simplify listening to radio online by bringing hundreds of UK stations together on a single site.
It also introduced shared standards so that radio players used the same interface and design – as opposed to each broadcaster adopting different, potentially confusing, styles on their respective websites.
Website: www.radioplayer.co.uk
Commercial Radio
Commercial radio licenses are awarded by government body Ofcom, which advertises a license for a specific area and holds a contest to determine which station will be granted permission to broadcast in that area. Most commercial stations broadcast to a city or group of towns, or regional stations covering larger areas.
Many local and regional radio stations are owned by large radio groups which broadcast a similar format to many areas. The largest operator of radio is Global Radio which bought the former media group, Gcap Media. It owns Classic FM and London’s most popular commercial station, 95.8 Capital FM.
Most of the UK’s national, regional and local commercial stations offer live streams on their websites. Since 2006, many of the UK’s commercial radio stations have been restricting live stream access to users from the United Kingdom only.
This came as a response to PPL’s announcement that they would only grant radio stations the webcasting rights to stream to audiences within the UK only, or to face additional costs.
Some of the larger stations do not restrict their services to the UK, please check the Commercial Radio page for more information.
Geoblocking
Geoblocking is a technology that is used to prevent access to web sites from visitors in particular countries or regions.
At the moment it is mainly used by traditional broadcast companies who are moving their television, radio and music content online. Because of distribution contracts with the producers of these programmes many broadcast web sites limit access to people within their own country.
Whenever a person connects to the internet, their computer or mobile device is assigned what is called an IP address. This is a sequence of numbers in the form of 255.255.255.255.
The IP address is assigned to you by the internet service provider (ISP) that you are connecting through and these, in turn, are assigned to the ISP in blocks.
It is, therefore, possible to say that a particular IP address is from a particular country or even city.
Site owners that want to use geoblocking simply choose to only allow access to a particular range of IP addresses or to block certain ranges.
UK VPN (Virtual Private Network)
A UK VPN account is an account that would allow you to connect to a server located in the United Kingdom. Once connected you will be assigned a UK IP address and all traffic will be encrypted using PPTP or L2TP IPsec encryption. You will still need an internet connection, though you will bypass internet filtering and log keeping (if your ISP keeps logs).
Using a VPN is legal, as no re-broadcasting, copying or pirating is taking place. Once connected to a VPN network in the UK, you will be able to access most sites that restrict access to users outside the UK.
Get a UK VPN or SmartStream from StreamVia ( A UK & USA VPN package is required for SmartStream.