Streaming TV has a lot going for it — you’re not beholden to a cable contract and you’re not typically paying for a bunch of content you don’t actually want. But if you only subscribe to Netflix and basic Hulu, you might be missing some of the perks of cable, namely live sports, local news and the spontaneity of linear (as opposed to on-demand) programming. Live TV streaming services simply require an internet connection and a screen capable of streaming. They also don’t come with contracts and typically cost less than cable (and some are even free). We tested out a dozen services to come up with the best live TV streaming services, depending on the type of TV watcher you happen to be.
What to look for in a live TV streaming service
How to stream live TV
Streaming live TV is a lot like using Netflix. You get access through apps on your phone, tablet, smart TV or streaming device and the signal arrives over the internet. A faster and more stable connection tends to give you a better experience. Most live TV apps require you to sign up and pay via a web browser. After that, you can activate the app on your device.
Price
When I started my cord-cutting research, I was struck by the price difference between live TV and a standard streaming app like Netflix or Peacock. Where the latter cost between $5 and $20 per month, many live TV services hit the $75 mark and can go higher than $200 with additional perks, channel packages and premium extras. The higher starting price is mostly due to the cost of providing multiple networks – particularly sports and local stations. And, in the past six months or so, every service except Philo and Sling has raised base plan prices.
Local channels
Only two of the services we tried don’t include full local channel coverage for subscribers and one of those makes no effort at carrying sports. That would be Philo and, as you might guess, it’s the cheapest. The next most affordable option, Sling, only carries three local stations, and only in larger markets, but it still manages to include some of the top sports channels.
When you sign up with any provider that handles local TV, you’ll enter your zip code, ensuring you get your area’s broadcast affiliates for ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. Of course, you can also get those stations for free. Nearly all modern television sets support a radio frequency (RF) connection, also known as the coaxial port, which means if you buy an HD antenna, you’ll receive locally broadcast stations like ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. And since the signal is digital, reception is much improved over the staticky rabbit-ears era.
Sports
One reality that spun my head was the sheer number and iterations of sports networks in existence. Trying to figure out which network will carry the match-up you want to see can be tricky. Google makes it a little easier for sports fans by listing out upcoming games (just swap in NFL, MLB, NHL and so on in the search bar). When you click an event, the “TV & streaming” button will tell you which network is covering it.
That just leaves figuring out if your chosen service carries that regional sports network. Unfortunately, even with add-ons and extra packages, some providers simply don’t have certain channel lineups. It would take a lawyer to understand the ins and outs of streaming rights negotiations, and networks leave and return to live TV carriers all the time. That said, most major sporting events in the US are covered by ESPN, Fox Sports, TNT, USA and local affiliates.
It’s also worth noting that traditional streaming services have started adding live sports to their lineups. Peacock carries live Premier League matches and Sunday Night Football. Max now airs select, regular season games from the NHL, MLB and NBA with a $10-per-month add-on. You can watch MLS games with an add-on through the Apple TV app, and Apple TV+ includes some MLB games. And finally, if you subscribe to Paramount Plus, you can see many of the matches you’d see on CBS Sports. While these options won’t cover as much ground as live TV streamers, they could scratch a sports itch without too much added cost.
Traditional cable networks
Dozens of linear programming networks were once only available with cable TV, like Bravo, BET, Food Network, HGTV, CNN, Lifetime, SYFY and MTV. If you only subscribe to, say, Netflix or Apple TV+, you won’t have access to those. But as with sports, standard streamers are starting to incorporate this content into their offerings. After the Warner Bros. merger, Max incorporated some content from HGTV, Discovery and TLC. Peacock has Bravo and Hallmark shows, and Paramount+ has material from Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central.
Other channels like AMC+ have stand-alone apps. The Discovery+ app gives you 15 channels add-free for $9 per month. And a service called Frndly TV costs a mere $7 per month and streams A&E, Lifetime, Game Show Network, Vice and about 35 others. Of course, most live TV streaming options will deliver more sizable lists of cable networks, but just note that you may already be paying for some of them — and if all you need is a certain channel, you could get it cheaper by subscribing directly.
How to stream live TV for free
We also tested a few apps that offer free ad-supported TV (FAST) including Freevee, Tubi, PlutoTV and Sling Freestream. They let you drop in and watch a more limited selection of live networks at zero cost. Most don’t even require an email address, let alone a credit card. And if you have a Roku device, an Amazon Fire TV Stick or a Samsung TV, you already have access to hundreds of live channels via the Roku Channel, the live tab in Fire TV or through the Samsung TV Plus app.
Digital video recordings (DVR)
Every option we’ve included offers cloud DVR storage, so you don’t need a separate physical device like you often do with traditional cable. You’ll either get unlimited storage for recordings that expires after nine months or a year, or you’ll get a set number of hours (between 50 and 1,000) that you can keep indefinitely. Typically, all you need to do is designate what you want to record and the DVR component will do all the hard work of saving subsequent episodes for you to watch later.
Aside from being able to watch whenever it’s most convenient, you can also fast-forward through commercials in recorded content. In contrast, you can’t skip them on live TV or video-on-demand (VOD).
Most live TV subscriptions include access to a selection of VOD content including movies and shows that are currently airing on your subscribed networks. This typically doesn’t cover live events, local shows and news programming. But it does let you watch specific episodes of ongoing shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives or BET’s Sistas. Just search the on-demand library for the program, pick an episode and hit play.
Tiers, packages and add-ons
Comparing price-to-offering ratios is a task for a spreadsheet. I… made three. The base plans range from $25 to $80 per month. From there, you can add packages, which are usually groups of live TV channels bundled by themes like news, sports, entertainment or international content. Premium VOD extras like Max, AMC+ and Starz are also available. Add-ons cost an extra $5 to $20 each per month and simply show up in the guide where you find the rest of your live TV. This is where streaming can quickly get expensive, pushing an $80 subscription to $200 monthly, depending on what you choose.
How we tested
When I begin testing for a guide, I research the most popular and well-reviewed players in the category and narrow down which are worth trying. For the paid plans, just six services dominate so I tried them all. There are considerably more free live TV contenders so I tested the four most popular. After getting accounts set up using my laptop, I downloaded the apps on a Samsung smart TV running the latest version of Tizen OS. I counted the local stations and regional sports coverage, and noted how many of last year’s top cable networks were available. I then weighed the prices, base packages and available add-ons.
I then looked at how the programming was organized in each app’s UI and judged how easy everything was to navigate, from the top navigation to the settings. To test the search function, I searched for the same few TV shows on BET, Food Network, HGTV and Comedy Central, since all six providers carry those channels. I noted how helpful the searches were and how quickly they got me to season 6, episode 13 of Home Town.
I used DVR to record entire series and single movies and watched VOD shows, making sure to test the pause and scan functions. On each service with sports, I searched for the same four upcoming NHL, NBA, MLS and NCAA basketball matches and used the record option to save the games and play them back a day or two later. Finally, I noted any extra perks or irritating quirks.
Here’s the full list of everything we tried:
Free ad-supported live TV:
YouTube TV
Base plan: $73/mo. | Local channels: Yes | DVR limits: Unlimited, 9 mo. expiration | Profiles per account: 6 | Simultaneous at-home streams: 3 | Picture in picture mode: Yes
Google’s option makes a strong case for delivering the best streaming service for live TV. Compared to our top pick for sports, YouTube TV covers major and minor teams, regional games and national matchups almost as well. It gives you clear navigation, a great search function, unlimited DVR and broad network coverage. It’s not quite as affordable as it once was, as YouTube recently raised the price to $73 per month – and it’s even more financially precarious if you’re not great at resisting temptation.
Upon signup, you’re presented with nearly 50 different add-ons, including 4K resolution, premium channels and themed packages. Even if you fight the urge to roll Max, Shudder and AcornTV into the mix at signup, the enticement remains as it’s dangerously easy to add more to your subscription. If you search for a program on a network you don’t have, you’re prompted to add it. And of course, you can also rent or buy movies that aren’t currently showing on any channels, just like you can via YouTube. While it’s convenient to be able to order up anything you might want on a whim, I imagine this pushes many users’ bills far above Google’s listed $73 per month.
Still, it’s nice to have all your entertainment in one place. And if you only want the add-ons, you can actually subscribe to most of the standalone networks without paying for the base plan. Either way, you get a familiar user experience, with navigation you’ll recognize if you’ve spent any time on regular ol’ YouTube. Unsurprisingly, Google’s search function was the best of the bunch, finding the shows and games I searched for quickly and giving me clear choices for how to watch and record.
At signup, you’ll also pick the shows, networks and teams you like, which are added to your library. YouTube TV then automatically records them. You get unlimited cloud DVR space (though recordings expire after nine months) and it’s dead simple to add programming to your library. Like a real cable experience, YouTube TV autoplays your last-watched program upon startup by default, but it was the only service that allowed me to turn that feature off by heading to the settings.
Searching for and recording an upcoming game was easy. Once the game was recorded, I had to hunt a little to find it in my library (turns out single games are listed under the Events heading, not Sports). But after that, playback was simple and included a fascinating extra feature: You can either play a recorded game from the beginning or hit Watch Key Plays. The latter gives you between 12 and 20 highlight snippets, each about 10 seconds long. It focuses on the most impressive shots in an NBA bout and includes every goal in an MLS matchup. The feature was available for NCAA basketball and in-season major American leagues (hockey, soccer and basketball at the time of testing). Foreign and more minor games didn’t have the feature.
Sports fans will also appreciate the new multiview feature that YouTube TV added last year that lets you pick up to four sports, news and weather channels from a select list and view them all at the same time on your screen. If you find yourself constantly flipping back and forth between games, this could save you some hassle.
YouTube TV also gives you the most in-app settings. You can add parental controls to a profile or pull up a stats menu that shows your buffer health and connection speeds. You can lower playback resolution for slow connections and even send feedback to YouTube. It was also the best at integrating VOD and live programming. For example, if you search for a show that happens to be playing live, a red badge in the corner of the show’s image lets you know it’s on right now. Other services didn’t display this info as clearly.
- Intuitive and smooth interface
- Accurate search functions
- Cool multiview feature
- Good coverage of sports, news and linear programming networks
- Very easy to overspend on extras
- The price keeps going up
Hulu
Base plan: $77/mo | Local channels: Yes | DVR limits: Unlimited, 9-month expiration | Profiles per account: 6 | Simultaneous at-home streams: 2 | Picture in picture mode: No
After YouTube TV went up to $73 per month, Hulu + Live TV shot to $77. But if you already or plan to subscribe to the regular Hulu app and/or Disney+, Hulu’s live component still makes better financial sense. It gives you live TV streaming, plus all the content from Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+, much of which you can’t get elsewhere. Note that $77 gets you the content with ads — for ad-free Disney+ and Hulu components, it’s $90 monthly.
Hulu + Live TV carries your local affiliates and most of the top cable channels. For sports, you get all available ESPN iterations plus FS1, FS2, TBS, USA, TNT, NBC Golf and the NFL Network. You can also add on premium VOD channels like Max and Showtime, and it’s the only provider that includes Disney+ at no extra cost.
Navigation on Hulu + Live TV isn’t as smooth as most of the other options – it felt like the live component had been shoehorned into the standard Hulu app. But if you’re already comfortable with (and paying for) Hulu, upgrading to the live TV bundle might be worthwhile.
- Includes Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ programming
DirecTV
Base plan: $80/mo. | Local channels: Yes | DVR limits: Unlimited, 9-month expiration (maximum of 30 episodes per series) | Profiles per account: 1 | Simultaneous at-home streams: Unlimited | Picture in picture mode: No
Canceling cable is no joke – those contracts are binding. But if you enjoy the serendipity of flipping from one channel to the next and having access to as many networks as possible, DirecTV Stream will give you a very similar experience to cable without shackling you to a contract. Like cable, it allows you to jump to the “next” sequential channel (yes, DirecTV Stream numbers its channels) with a single button press, transforming the left and right d-pad buttons of a smart TV remote into the rocker on a standard clicker.
It carries nearly all of the most popular cable networks and lets you add multiple packages and premiums like Showtime, Starz, AMC+ and Discovery+. You can also add Max, just like on YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, but DirecTV is the only one we tried that also lets you add Peacock. Of course, you can just add those apps separately to your smart TV, but for anyone who wants to approximate the all-in-one convenience of cable, it’s a nice perk.
When you fire up DirecTV Stream, whichever network you last watched automatically starts playing. It continues when you switch over to the guide or other menu pages. If you’re used to the quieter experience of traditional streaming apps (after you turn off autoplay), you might find that a little distracting.
The navigation didn’t feel intuitive, partly because the menu options overlay the currently playing show and because there are so many ways to browse, access and control live, recorded and on-demand content. The search function found the shows and movies I searched for and accurately presented the upcoming games I wanted just from typing in one of the teams.
You can’t add new channels or packages through the app, which might be a relief to anyone worried about succumbing to subscription overload. Everyone else may just find it annoying.
- Cable-like experience without a contract
- Broad channel coverage
- Somewhat complicated interface
Fubo
Base plan: $80/mo. | Local channels: Yes | DVR limits: 1000 hours, no expiration | Profiles per account: 6 | Simultaneous at-home streams: 10 | Picture in picture mode: Yes (Apple TV only)
If you want to stream live sports, you should probably opt for Fubo. When you first sign up, it asks which teams you follow across all kinds of associations. Pick teams from in-season leagues and you’ll quickly have DVR content to watch. That’s because Fubo records every game your chosen teams play as long as it’s aired on a supported channel – and its sports coverage is vast.
I tested out a premium subscription and the guide said there were 118 sports networks to choose from. In addition to the usual suspects from ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS, you can watch motorsports, international leagues, adventure sports and even poker. Add-ons give you NBA TV, NHL Network, NFL Red Zone and MLB Network. And if you need access to all one thousand games the NBA plays in a season, you can add the NBA League Pass to your lineup for $15 per month. Fubo even has its own sports channels.
Yes, the coverage is comprehensive, but Fubo also made finding and recording specific games very easy. Searching for an upcoming game was simple, as was sifting through the ample amount of recorded games I ended up with. I particularly liked FanView for live games, which inserts the video into a smaller window and surrounds that window with continually updating stats plus a clickable list of other games currently airing.
Fubo has made an obvious effort to win at sports, but recently it’s tried to deliver on the live TV experience as well. Based on what I’ve seen so far, it’s certainly made strides. The guide was impressive in the number of ways it let you organize live TV, yet everything felt clean and uncluttered. The Home, Sports, Shows and Movies pages were filled with recommendations and many iterations of categories, with almost all suggestions being live TV.
Where Fubo falls short is in VOD access and DVR playback. It wasn’t the best at finding the shows I searched for, and navigating available VOD content wasn’t as breezy as browsing through live programming. The lack of a pop-up preview window as you fast forward or rewind through recordings makes it tough to gauge where you are in a show. As for price, Fubo ties with DirecTV Stream for the most expensive base package at $80. But if you need all the sports – and want some nicely organized live TV during the few moments when there’s not a game on – this is the way to go.
- Best coverage of sports networks
- Automatically records your favorite teams
- Informative FanView feature
- Uncluttered live TV interface
- DVR and VOD experience is inferior to the live component
Sling TV
Base plan: Starting at $40/mo | Local channels: ABC, FOX, NBC in limited markets | DVR limits: 50 hours, no expiration | Profiles per account: 4 | Simultaneous at-home streams: 1 or 3 | Picture in picture mode: Yes
To me, the idea of spending time fine-tuning channel choices sounds exhausting. But if you’re the type who wants to get exactly what you want without paying for too much of what you don’t, Sling TV may be your best bet. It breaks its base plan into two packages, Blue and Orange, with different channels on each. Blue, which costs $45 a month, carries a larger number of networks, while Orange seems to have spent its lineup dollars on ESPN and ESPN 2. But at $40 monthly, Sling Orange is the cheapest way to get those two sports outlets.
After picking a plan, you can choose from a stable of add-on packages, with monthly prices ranging from $6 to $11. These include blocks of sports or lifestyle channels, kid-friendly fare, the Discovery+ bundle and a news package. There are 41 individual premium offerings, including Showtime, Starz, MGM+, Shudder and Acorn, which go for between $2 and $10 per month. Sling has pay-per-view movies, too.
As far as local coverage, Sling Blue grants access to ABC, Fox and NBC local affiliates in about 20 of the larger US markets including Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, NYC, Miami and DC. ABC coverage began in March 2023, but unfortunately, that raised the price of Sling Blue in supported markets from $40 to $45. For people not in those areas (or who opt for Orange) Sling is currently running a promotion for a free HD antenna to catch local stations.
Navigation is speedy and the interface is nicely organized, putting an emphasis on what you like to watch, with recommendations that are pretty accurate. The UI also makes the add-ons you’ve chosen easy to find. In my tests, though, the app froze a number of times as I navigated. While most services froze once or twice, it happened enough times with Sling to frustrate me. I had to force quit or back out of the app and start over five or six times during the three weeks of testing. Compared to others, Sling’s DVR allowance is on the stingy side, only giving you 50 hours of recordings, though they won’t expire. You can pay for more DVR storage, but that will increase your overall costs.
I tried not to wander too far off-path during testing, but I feel it’s my duty to inform you that Sling has an Elvis channel, a Bob Ross channel and ALF TV (yes, an entire station devoted to the ‘80s sitcom starring a puppet). There’s also a Dog TV network intended to be played for your dogs when you leave the house, which you can add to Sling or get as a standalone app.
- More affordable than most live services
- Orange plan is the cheapest way to get ESPN
- Highly customizable packages
- Only 50 hours of DVR allowance
- Local channels only in major metro areas
Philo
Base plan: $25/mo. | Local channels: No | DVR limits: Unlimited, one year expiration | Profiles per account: 10 | Simultaneous streams: 3 | Picture in picture mode: Yes (browser only)
At just $25 per month, Philo is one of the cheapest ways to get a cordless live TV experience. The biggest caveat is that you won’t find any local stations or sports programming on it. If that’s not an issue, Philo is great, with a clean, streamlined interface and generous DVR limits.
I’m a fan of minimalist design, so I appreciated the way Philo presented its menus and guide. There are just four top navigation headings: Home, Guide, Saved and Search. And instead of the usual guide layout that stretches out or shortens a show’s listing to represent its air time, Philo’s guide features monospaced squares in chronological order with the duration of the program inside the square. Another nice touch is when you navigate to a square, it fills with a live video of the show or movie.
Philo doesn’t limit the amount of programming you can DVR and lets you keep recordings for a full year, which is more than the nine months other providers allow. Like all live TV streamers, Philo won’t let you fast forward VOD programming. If skipping commercials is important to you, I recommend taking advantage of that unlimited DVR policy and hitting “Save” on any show or movie you think you may want to watch, then fast forwarding it on playback (you can do this with all the services we tried).
As far as channels, Philo covers many of the top cable networks, with notable exceptions including Fox News, CNN, ESPN and MSNBC. Anyone looking for great news coverage should look elsewhere anyway, but the lack of a few must-have entertainment outlets like Bravo and Freeform was a little disappointing.
- Affordable
- Minimalist and easy interface
- Unlimited DVR allowance that lasts for a year
- No sports or local access
- Limited news coverage
Best free live TV streaming services
Many standard streaming apps have added live components to their lineups. You’re paying for the service, so it’s not technically “free,” but you can get a dose of live TV without spending more than necessary. Peacock includes some regional NBC stations and Paramount+ subscribers can watch on-air CBS programming. The standard Hulu app has a live ABC news channel and Max now includes a live CNN outlet with its service.
Amazon Prime Video contains a live TV tab, as does the Fire TV interface. And, if you use Roku or Samsung as your smart OS of choice, their built-in, proprietary services include hundreds of live channels at no extra cost. Plus there are free apps from Plex and PBS — even NASA has a free streaming service.
But if you want a full suite of live TV networks, and don’t want to sign up for any paid service, there are a number of free ad-supported TV services that have live TV. Here’s the best of what we tried:
Pluto TV
Pluto TV has the most attractive interface of the free apps. It’s granularly organized, even including a kids and a gaming/anime section among the live categories. Pluto has a number of its own stations such as Pluto Sports, Pluto News, Pluto Movies, and Pluto Pixel which appears to be mostly Let’s Play Minecraft videos. The service’s (also free) on-demand content is shuffled into the live TV menu, so the service feels even bigger than its 250 live channels would otherwise.
A series of mergers and acquisitions put Pluto under the ownership of Paramount, which also owns CBS and MTV brands, so your selection of what to watch includes channels built around Star Trek, MTV and Comedy Central. Regional news options are limited to about a dozen CBS stations, and live news-stream channels include NBC News Live, Bloomberg Television, Cheddar News and others. As for sports, you get CBS Sports HQ, a version of Fox Sports and league-specific programming from the NFL, MLB, and Golf Channels.
Tubi
You also don’t need to give Tubi any of your information to start watching live content. In many areas, it’ll grant access to your local ABC and Fox station and also includes the news-stream channels that other similar services carry, like NBC News Now, Fox Live Now and ABC News Live. Fox is Tubi’s parent company so you get picks like Fox Sports, Fox Soul and over a dozen regional Fox networks.
The live TV component lives within the Home menu and, from there, the stations are organized by category, making it easy to browse the more than 200 live channels. Navigation is speedy and, along with a good library of on-demand movies, shows and kids’ stuff, Tubi has the most regional news stations of any free service we tried.
Amazon
It was first called IMDbTV, but Amazon changed the name of its free streaming option to Freevee to better hint at its price. What’s available is pretty similar to the Live TV menu option you’ll find within the Prime Video app — in fact, the interface on that app is actually better organized, with listings by category. Freevee’s live TV menu is just a long, single list of channels. Prime’s version is speedier, too.
However, Freevee is, true to its name, completely free. You don’t even have to sign in, though you’ll be prompted to do so when you first open the app (just select “Watch as a guest” in the lower corner to bypass that). There are currently around 350 channels with news networks like ABC News Live, Fox Live Now and NBC News Now. Sports showcases include the MLB Channel, NBC Sports and Fubo Sports. Tons of reality, true crime and current and classic TV avenues round out the offerings, including entire stations playing 24/7 rotations of single shows, like Top Gear and Unsolved Mysteries. Do you need a channel that plays the 1960s Addams Family non-stop? If so, you can find it on Freevee.
Sling
At first, I thought Freestream was a browser-only service. It was easy enough to find it through the web, but not as easy on my TV. Freestream uses the same app as the paid Sling service, and when you first get the app on your TV you’re prompted to sign in on your phone. I created an account, but then couldn’t find the Freestream option, only the paid ones. Thinking I was doing something wrong, I exited the browser on my phone then backed out of the Sling app on my TV. Only then was I offered the Freestream version, as sort of a “Wait, don’t go” tactic.
Once you’re in, you can access more than 250 channels, though finding them is a little tough as the only categories to pick from are news, sports, movies and kids. There’s an “All” menu choice, which seems to arrange things by popularity, but a little more organization would be nice. Despite that, Freestream does have a fascinating array of channels, including magazine channels from Vogue, GQ and Wired, lots of live movie channels and more than 100 foreign and foreign language news, music, sports and lifestyle networks. And despite the hard-to-navigate interface, I did appreciate the picture-in-picture that pops up when you’re surfing the guide.
