Freely, the new British free-to-air streaming service succeeding Freeview, has announced four new brands which will be building the platform into its smart TVs.
Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic and Metz are joining the Freely line-up, after existing partners Hisense and Bush joined in April and May 2024, respectively.
Freely is backed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and integrates all of its live TV channels and on demand content in one place, for free, via compatible smart TVs. STV and S4C’s content is also available.
All that is required is a WiFi connection, which removes the need for an aerial or satellite dish. But Freely viewers can use an aerial to access more terrestrial channels.
Freely viewers can also pause and restart live broadcasts. Everyone TV, who runs Freely as well as Freeview and Freesat, has said that we can expect more features as the service develops.
Deep Halder, Chief Commerical Officer at Everyone TV, said: “We’re delighted to be announcing increased availability of Freely with four new smart TV partners due to launch later this year.
“A joint venture between Britain’s leading broadcasters, Freely is built on collaboration and it is encouraging to see more of the industry coming together to contribute to the success of Freely, working together to secure the future of free TV.”
On the same day as the announcement (24 June), the heads of the UK’s major broadcasters came together to mark the launch of Freely, including Tim Davie, the Director General of the BBC, Dame Carolyn McCall, the CEO of ITV, Alex Mahon, the CEO of Channel 4 and Sarah Rose, the President of Channel 5. Together they defined the important role that Freely has to play in the future of public service broadcasting.
“People want free,” said Mahon. “It’s all well to talk about other subscription services, but people want free, especially when things aren’t looking so good. [...] They don’t want thousands of services, but they do want to find content they trust. So we have to evolve to make it easy for them to find trusted, truthful, impartial content.”
Davie went a step further, commenting on public service broadcasting and its power to unite. “If you want to keep a society together,” he said, “it’s having free access to [services like Freely], where prominence is not about the person who can pay the biggest check.”
