Knowledge Base

Can I watch Freeview channels without an aerial?

You’ll need an aer­i­al to watch most chan­nels on your short-mod­el. How­ever, a small num­ber of chan­nels can be streamed over the inter­net, but these can­not be recorded.

Freeview Play inter­net chan­nels #

When con­nec­ted to the inter­net, the short-mod­el can stream these chan­nels without an aerial:

  • 301 BBC Three
  • 302 BBC Scot­land
  • 303 BBC ALBA
  • 501 BBC News
  • 502 BBC Parliament

These chan­nels will appear if you con­nec­ted your short-mod­el to the inter­net dur­ing setup and selec­ted to receive them. If you didn’t have the inter­net con­nec­ted at that time but do now, you can per­form a retune by going to:

Home → Set­tings → Chan­nels → Auto Retune → Retune & Clear Pref­er­ences.

Please note that Freeview Play Chan­nel Man­age­ment must be turned on to receive these inter­net chan­nels. It’s enabled by default, but if you turned it off, you can switch it back on by going to:

Home → Set­tings → Chan­nels → Freeview Play Chan­nel Man­age­ment.

Learn more about Freeview Play Chan­nel Man­age­ment here.

Live TV through apps #

You can also find addi­tion­al live chan­nels from the BBC in the BBC iPlay­er app. Addi­tion­al live TV options are planned for ITVX and oth­er apps in future updates.

Hybrid chan­nels (aer­i­al and inter­net needed) #

Some chan­nels in the 200 range are hybrid chan­nels, stream­ing live con­tent via apps. For example, 254 On Demand 365 provides CrimeHis­tory, and Nature chan­nels, while 255 France 24 streams mul­tiple ver­sions of the news chan­nel. How­ever, you’ll need an aer­i­al to tune these hybrid chan­nels first, before access­ing their inter­net streams.

Import­ant note about aer­i­als #

For reli­able recep­tion of most Freeview chan­nels, we recom­mend using a rooftop or loft aer­i­al. Indoor aer­i­als typ­ic­ally don’t provide adequate sig­nal strength or quality.