Launched in April 2024, Freely is the UK’s free-to-air IPTV service backed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
Operated by Everyone TV, it is currently available through the next generation of smart TVs and offers audiences both live and on-demand content in the same place. Currently, the platform offers over 70 live channels, including several FAST channels.
With accelerating growth and further expansion planned for 2026, Freely has been independently forecast to be the largest TV device platform in the UK within the next five years.
Unlike other free TV services, it offers features and functionality that have historically been associated with premium pay-TV services, such as live pause on TV, the ability to restart, and Watch Lists. This provides audiences with a “substantial step change” in what they’ve been offered before, chief product officer Sarah Milton tells TVBEurope.
“From an industry perspective, we’re really unique in the way that we partner with TV manufacturers and operating system providers to ensure that, basically, you can get Freely out of the box,” she continues.
All of the UK’s traditional broadcasters have been involved wth Freely right from the start, ensuring that viewers can access all of their content (live and on-demand) in one place. This means that as viewing habits shift towards streaming, audiences can find everything they need in one place. “I firmly believe that the free-to-air ecosystem in the UK is still really strong, and we know that viewers really enjoy the content from PSBs, but also from our other partners, like UKTV, AMC and PBS,” states Milton.
“Audiences really value these channels when they want to be entertained and when they want to relax. It taps into that lean-back viewing experience, that audiences still really appreciate and really enjoy.”
Everyone TV has published research conducted by Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates, which found that live free-to-air channels were rated highest for making people feel ‘relaxed’ (32 per cent) and ‘entertained’ (53 per cent), when compared with other channels and global streaming and video services. The data underscores the continued importance of Freely’s ‘lean-back’ TV experience.
Milton explains that Freely has been developed as a “broad church”, appealing to different audience types and different needs. “If you’re a linear first viewer, then there are really easy ways to find linear TV channels. You can use the number buttons on the remote control, or the live TV rail that’s super prominent or the TV guide route that many people still use to start their TV journey.
“Also, if you’re VoD first, then you just press the Freely button on the remote control, and we’ve got a browse screen that aggregates all the on-demand content across all of our content partners in one place. We’ve created it so that it is valuable, regardless of how you prefer to access your TV.”
Another key feature is that linear first viewers can be “nudged” towards on-demand content that might also be of interest via Freely’s innovative overlay on live TV. “You can find other episodes of the show that’s on if you’re not up to date, for example. And likewise, if you’re VoD first and you’re pressing that Freely button, we’re still reminding you what’s available on those live linear channels, in case you just want to watch something when it’s on.”
Much of Freely’s success is down to the fact that it is an owned-operator app, meaning that Milton and the product team have been able to integrate it more deeply into the native user interface of a smart TV compared to other apps. “We retain the flexibility to evolve and improve in live more than we were able to do with the model that we had with Freeview Play, for example, which was much more rules-based, but then it wasn’t our software, we didn’t own the experience once it was live,” she explains.
“In terms of the way we built Freely, the operator app is really key to it all. And I guess the other advantage is that we’ve built one app, and it supports multiple different TV models. So we can invest in one set of features and functionality, and not have to maintain multiple different tech stacks.”
The integration between the live and on-demand content is driven by an aggregated metadata system that has been integrated into the Freely service. “So if you’re watching Strictly Come Dancing or The Traitors and you wanted to watch an earlier episode or an earlier season, you’d be deep-linked into BBC iPlayer, and that show would start playing,” explains Milton. “Once you finish that, you exit back out and return to where you were in Freely. It’s all through a metadata engine that connects the shows together.”
Having initially launched as a smart TV app, the Freely team is now actively working towards its first device. The Freely puck will be a plug-in and stream device, which will launch “soon”. Milton says the company is also working on further innovations, with the aim of increasing scale and reach. “We knew when we launched on smart TVs that there were many viewers who liked the sound of Freely a lot and were disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to get it on a TV that they just bought,” she adds, “this device coming to market, definitely solves that, and so we’re very excited about it.”
“We’ve got great momentum. Freely will be the biggest TV platform by the end of the decade, available across the majority of TVs on sale, and also with the plugin and stream pucks and sticks, the experience is going to keep on improving for viewers. We’ll have a big focus on personalisation over the next 12 months, as well as more ways to search and discover the content.”
