TV options

There are more ways to watch TV in the UK than there are types of biscuits (i.e. a lot).

Your TV license & live TV

As soon as you move into a new home in the UK, you'll probably receive a letter asking you to pay your TV license. Paying your TV licence gives you access to a bunch of high-quality TV channels from the BBC, which you can watch on your mobile devices and laptops as well as on a traditional TV.

There’s some really great stuff on the BBC. Buy a TV licence online.

If you don’t intend to ever watch live TV (including the BBC, but also things like Channel 4), you don’t have to pay a TV licence. Instead, you can submit a form telling the TV licence authorities that you don’t need one. You don’t need a TV licence if you only watch streaming services like Netflix.

TV licence people are not messing around in England. As soon as you move in, there will likely already be a letter from them telling you to pay your TV licence. Apparently, they have all sorts of ways to check if you watch TV without a licence (this is probably a myth, but I have heard that inspectors literally park outside your house and use sensors to check your home). I have personally had a licence inspector come to my house to check if I was watching TV.

Your options for live TV:

• BBC (if you pay your TV licence) – also comes with BBC iPlayer, where you can watch things on demand

• Sky - satellite/cable TV. Expensive, but good to get if you like watching ALL the live sports, all the time. You can usually pay for just the type of thing you watch, like the Sports or Kids bundles. If you just watch the occasional sports game, try a day pass from NowTV instead.

Free TV with ads:

• Channel 4 (and the online version All4)

• Channel 5 (and the online version My5)

• UKTV

• ITV

• Rakuten TV

On your TV, the best way to watch all the free channels together is through Freeview Play. You must have a TV licence. 

Most modern-ish TVs have apps for stuff like Freeview, the BBC and the big streaming services built in. If you have an older TV that doesn’t have apps, you can buy a TV box. Many of them run Android TV so you can also use Chromecast to play things from your phone on the TV. You can get boxes that allow you to watch both live TV and streaming. If this paragraph confused the pants off you, go into your local Curry's or another gadget company and ask for their help.

Paid streaming services

All of these paid streaming services are available in the UK. You don't need a TV license to watch them.

• Now

• Netflix

• Disney+

• Apple TV

• Amazon Prime Video

• Paramount+

• Britbox

• Mubi

• iPlayer (you need a TV licence for this one)

  
  

Most of the paid streaming services have free trials. Just hop from trial to trial and get a good few months of free TV. Once you’ve finished your trials, I suggest rotating through the ones you like so you’re only paying for one or two at a time. What’s the point of having infinite streaming apps when you only have two eyes?

How to watch South African TV from the UK

If you’re missing your fave SA shows, your options are:

• Get a Showmax subscription, which is available in the UK

• Get a VPN. These are apps that make it seem like your computer is in a different country, so you can pretend you’re in South Africa and watch DStv Now or SABC+ online (if you already have accounts – it’s hard to sign up from the UK). NordVPN and Surfshark are both good VPNs. Note that doing this may violate the terms of service of those channels.