TVPlayer Removes More Channels: MTV, Channel 5 And More

TVPlayer, the streaming service that aggregates a number of live and on-demand free and premium channels, has lost seven Freeview and premium channels from its lineup – including all the ones operated by Paramount.

Among the channels which are no longer available on TVPlayer are Channel 5, MTV and Comedy Central (see the full list below).

This removal takes place a year after TVPlayer also lost all of ITV’s channels as well as Channel 4, leaving the streaming TV service without any of the public broadcasters.

TVPlayer’s announcement, which was posted on TVPlayer’s support pages and was first reported by RX:TV, says that the changes were made after “an evaluation of the channel lineup”, and that new channels will be added in the future.

TVPlayer is an online-only streaming service that’s been around since 2014 (and acquired in 2019 by Alchimie, an international media company).

The app is available on a long list of streaming devices – from the Amazon Fire TV, to smartphones and Smart TVs.

TVPlayer provides a range of both live and on-demand channels and programmes, with a free tier and a paid tier that includes premium channels – though many of those channels have been removed in the past year.

In the past, TVPlayer used to have live feeds of many of the major Freeview channels – which was useful for people who can’t get decent reception with a Freeview Aerial (or a Freesat box), and were looking for an app that can stream some Freeview channels via the internet.

While many of those channels also have their own dedicated streaming app (like BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub), people found it convenient to have several live channels in one place, instead of having to jump around between separate apps.

Channels Leaving TVPlayer

The channels that have now been removed from TVPlayer are:

• Channel 5
• MTV
• Comedy Central
• Comedy Central Extra
• 5Select
• 5Star
• 5USA

TVPlayer’s announcement says:

“We regularly evaluate our channel lineup, and as part of our most recent evaluation, we have decided not to keep these channels.

“In order to enhance and broaden our Premium service, we made the challenging choice to remove these channels. We will be adding new exciting on-demand channels with incredible content that has been curated with your interests in mind.

“We understand that this is disappointing for many TVPlayer users, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

TVPlayer Alternatives

Unfortunately, there’s no single app that can replace TVPlayer’s previously available Freeview streaming – though there are a few workarounds for people who can’t use an aerial (or want to watch on the go).

First, there’s the Freeview Play mobile app: it doesn’t have any standalone streaming capabilities, but the app lets you see the Freeview TV guide, letting you jump between the different standalone channel apps that are already installed on your phone.

Then there are the channels’ own streaming apps: BBC iPlayer, for all the BBC channels, ITV Hub for ITV’s channels, All4 for Channel 4’s channels, and My5 for channel 5.

There are also two paid options for getting Freeview via streaming – Sky’s streaming TV – Sky Glass (see our review), and Virgin Media’s Stream box (see our review).