Amazon reveals major shake-up for Fire TVs with new free UK streaming service coming in days
A MAJOR free TV streaming platform from the UK’s biggest broadcasters has just received a huge boost after signing up Amazon to carry the service.
Freely is backed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
It’s primed as Freeview‘s eventual successor, swapping aerials for internet as the way to beam channels into homes.
The project was unleashed earlier this year and has been slowly building up its base of channels, recently adding UKTV’s offering including U&Dave.
Much like TVs with Freeview built-in, Freely tech is embedded in the telly, providing access to channels via Wi-Fi, as well as on-demand content.
Several household names including Toshiba and Panasonic have already adopted Freely but now a big brand has joined the list – Amazon.
Selected Amazon Fire TV models will now offer Freely in a huge boost to the growing platform.
It’ll be available later this autumn on Amazon Fire TV smart TVs including Fire TV 2-Series, 4-Series and Omni Series as well as smart TVs with Fire TV built-in.
Sadly, it doesn’t include portable Fire TV devices like the Fire Stick.
“We’re thrilled to be bringing Freely to Fire TV customers in the UK,” said Emma Gilmartin, Director of Fire TV Europe at Amazon.
“This new deal for Freely allows us to provide even more value to our customers by giving them easy access to the best free TV shows, films and live channels from UK broadcasters, alongside the great content they already enjoy on Fire TV.”
Freely is currently a hybrid product, meaning you can access streams via the internet as well as traditional aerial too.
This is because the service’s offering is still quite low, with only BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and UKTV channels on offer through an internet connection.
Jonathan Thompson, CEO at Everyone TV – which runs Freely and Freeview – said: “It’s exciting to see the momentum behind Freely building so rapidly as we announce this breakthrough deal with Amazon Fire TV.
“A deal of this kind, between a technology giant and those working in the public interest, is remarkable.
“It represents a significant development in widening the availability of Freely and therefore ensuring UK audiences can access free TV well into the future.”
Big boost for Freely
Analysis by Jamie Harris, Assistant Technology and Science Editor at The Sun
Partnering up with Amazon is a big boost for Freely which has had quite a slow start to life.
The range of channels is still pretty low on Freely – but don’t forget you can still watch channels the traditional way, via an aerial.
It’s a shame some sort of Freely app has been made to roll out onto older Amazon Fire TVs and Fire Sticks.
Instead, the focus is still on building it into newly purchased TVs.
But Freely still has a long way to go before it will ever replace Freeview – at the moment only the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and UKTV support the internet-based service.
Eventually, it should be able to host more channels than Freeview can but more broadcasters will need to jump on board.
Read my full first impressions verdict on Freely from April here.