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Why can’t I watch live TV on my Fire Stick?
Q Various ongoing problems with my TalkTalk YouView box caused me to switch to BT for broadband. I then bought an Amazon Fire TV Stick. I realise that I can’t get the benefits of a Freeview tuner through a Wi-Fi-only device like this, but I’m very disappointed that I cannot get live BBC TV – only iPlayer. Is this likely to change or not? I wasn’t aware of this when I bought the thing.
Judith Ellis
A
Actually, you can watch live BBC (and other) broadcasts on Fire TV Sticks, but how to do so isn’t all that obvious – especially to the generations of us brought up with traditional TV.
This is because with modern streaming services you can’t just flick through channels in the way that’s possible with traditional ‘terrestrial’ TV. That, in turn, is because pretty much every broadcaster has its own app and way of doing things. So, in order to watch BBC content, say, you first have to launch the BBC iPlayer app.
Meanwhile, tuning into live broadcasts from ITV requires you to open the ITVX app. And in each of those apps, you then have to find the particular way to activate the live services that you want – and every app does things a bit differently.
It gets worse. Even a single, service-specific app might display different layouts on different devices. BBC iPlayer on a smartphone or tablet, for example, isn’t quite the same as on a Fire TV Stick. Even then, the iPlayer app might not look exactly the same on every TV into which the Fire TV Stick is inserted, because the interface will be adjusted to fit the specific screen size and resolution!
All this makes watching TV just a lot more complicated than it used to be. So, to focus on your specific question, in the iPlayer app for your Fire TV Stick, starting at the Home page, first press the left arrow on your Fire TV Stick remote control to open the sidebar menu. Next, choose Channels (see screenshot above) and press the Select button.
Now navigate right into the channel list, then choose the channel you want (see screenshot below) before once more pressing Select. Finally, move so you highlight the ‘Watch live’ button then press Select. You’re now watching your chosen channel live.
However, you can’t just tap a ‘Channel Up’ or ‘Channel Down’ button to switch channels. So, if you’re watching something on BBC One, say, and want to switch to BBC Two, you’ll have to repeat the above steps. If you then want to check ITV1’s live output, you’ll have to instead open the ITVX app and navigate its interface.
There is hope on the horizon, in the form of Freely (www.freely.co.uk). This is a relatively new streaming service run by the UK’s major broadcasters and offers a single interface for watching live and on-demand shows from the main UK TV channels, including BBC, ITV, and Channels 4 and 5.