- If you've got a Roku, Roku of any kind
then you're going to need these top 10 free channels.
Yes there are plenty of paid apps out there,
but you don't have to pay for anything ever again
if you don't want to.
because there's plenty of great content on the free stuff.
So let's dive in.
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All right.
Now, before we get to the top 10 free channels
let's actually talk first about how to download them.
So if you're new to Roku, this will be valuable to you.
If you're not
if you already know how to download these apps
then you can go ahead and safely,
skip ahead just a minute, minute and a half
while I show how to do this.
What I'm going to do
on the left side is come down here to streaming channels.
And then if I click over here, I can come,
I can come into this featured section
and see what Roku recommends for me.
Or I can come down here to search channels.
So if you know what you're looking for, if you're looking
for one of the ones that I'm going to highlight here today
then you can go and search it that way.
So if we want to look for something news worthy
I guess, we can go to news
and you'll see Newsmax TV, NEWS, NewsON, Newsy,
there's all sorts of news channels anyway.
So that's how you're going to go ahead and do that.
Once you decide on one, you just click on it
and I've already got this one.
In fact, we're going to talk about that a little bit later
but it'll give you an option to download it
and then it will appear on your home screen.
Speaking of which let's go back to that home screen
and talk about the 10 apps that I think top our list.
In fact, I might throw a couple extra in there, anyway.
On this Roku system, I'm going to kind of skip
past these premium options the Netflix's
the Hulu's, HBO MAX
you've got to pay for all of these, right?
Well, except for one.
And that's Peacock.
Peacock is a premium streaming service from NBC universal.
It's got a lot of amazing content on there.
And it has a free tier,
unlike all of the other premium versions,
all of the Netflix's and Hulu's and that sort of thing.
So once you get into peacock
if you're just on the free tier, then it's only
going to show you the content that you can watch for free.
If you bump yourself up to premium
that is going to cost you a little bit
but you get a little bit more content as well.
Frankly, as far as I'm concerned
the free tier is pretty darn good.
And you're going to watch some commercials when
you're watching some shows, but it's a small price to pay.
In fact, that's going to be the watch word
with a lot of these services is commercial supported.
Okay? Now this is not a review of peacocks.
So I'm going to go ahead and move on
to the next one and come down here to STIRR and Pluto TV.
I'm kind of lumping these two together
because they do a very similar thing.
If you're moving on from cable
then these two apps are going to be really good
for mimicking that cable
or satellite experience that you had before.
where you do have some on demand content
that you can scroll through on here.
Or you can come up here to the channel guide.
And this is going to give you a guide just
like what you were used to on your cable
or satellite provider.
So as you can see, there is plenty to watch.
The only catch here is these are not the channels
that you're used to on cable and satellite.
These are kind of the, the stepchildren of those channels.
So you do have a lot of the same kind of content.
And as you can see a lot of reruns, that sort of thing
but I can pretty much guarantee the, between the reruns
between the mystery science theater, 3000, all that sort
of stuff.
There is going to be plenty for you to keep entertained by.
Now, as I said
there is some on-demand content when it comes to STIRR
but if you go over to Pluto TV,
this one I think is even a little bit better.
And this is our number three app here.
Pluto TV has,
I think the, and this is again, personal opinion
a little bit better channels, a little bit better content
and they have a much better on demand library.
So if we're watching live TV, yes
we can go through and check out all
of the different channels that they have there.
Again, not the channels you're used to
but still a lot of good content.
Or we can go back up here, press the back button,
go up to the top and push on demand.
And they've actually got a pretty decent library
of on-demand content that you can watch any time.
So this one is kind of a mix
of mimicking your cable experience
and mimicking something like a Netflix.
It's not as good as Netflix
but they do have a lot of good stuff here.
And again, it is going to be commercial supported.
All right, let's move on to NewsON.
I already showed you this a little bit when we were talking
about how to download these apps, but NewsON
is the one that I recommend for news.
If you are moving away from cable and satellite
you're going to have a ton of options for getting news.
There are a lot of national news options,
but news on is your source for local news feeds.
And it is fantastic for that.
So I'm here in the Salt Lake City area.
And the affiliate that we have is our CBS affiliate.
And that's great, but it will also show me stations near me.
So whether it's in Colorado or Nevada or Idaho
it's going to show me that stuff that is close to me.
Maybe I have family and friends around there
and I kind of want to check in on that.
But it goes even further than that, if you come
up here to by location, then it's got all 50 States
and each of those is going to have, at least
I think it's all 50 States.
I haven't actually counted,
but it's going to have each market
in there and which affiliates they have content from.
So if I go to Ohio
it's going to have Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus
and so on and so forth and list out all of the,
the potential stations that you have to watch there.
So if I click into WLWT
however they say that, I don't know.
WLWT not only does it have live feeds when they're on
but you can actually get on demand the
the newscasts that they have already done.
So I can watch their 2:30 AM newscast.
If I for some reason wasn't awake for that,
it's pretty cool.
All right, let's move on to our next option.
And that is PBS and PBS kids.
This is another twofer.
I've got PBS kids right here.
I know PBS is around here somewhere,
but let's stick with PBS kids.
Either way, what it's going to do is pull in content
from your local PBS station and the national stuff as well.
So anything that is available for you to watch
on your local PBS station is going to be available here
on the app as well, including whatever is playing
live at the moment, but you do have it all on demand also.
So my kids love Daniel Tiger's neighborhood.
They love curious, George, and I can just put that on
to their heart's content all for free.
Because hey it's PBS right.
Next up is the Roku channel.
The Roku channel obviously is only going to be available
on your Roku machine.
Now the Roku channel has a live TV channel guide,
just like a couple of the other services
that I mentioned before.
But it's also got a lot of other on-demand content
and it does one other cool thing that I will mention.
So you can go through, you can watch the, again, the kind
of stepchildren of the cable channels in the live TV guide.
You've got that here.
You've got the on-demand content, if you prefer
or if you come down here.
One of the things that the Roku channel is trying to
do is pull all of your stuff into one place.
So if you do end up paying for content
from any premium services.
Then you can do that here through the Roku channel as well.
And then everything is in one place.
So it's not going to be all of those premium services
but something like Stars BET+, AMC+
you can pay for those
and get them in here in the Roku channel.
Now, again, you don't have to do that.
We're talking about free content here today
and this is going to provide you
with a lot of actually really quality free content.
Including some stuff that is, is pretty new
like the taken series, et cetera, et cetera.
The next apps that we'll highlight are again pretty similar.
We have Tubi and Crackle.
Tubi is kind of the first
the original Netflix cos player,
whatever we want to call it.
Tubi looks and smells and feels a lot like Netflix,
but the library is different.
They don't have any originals
and it is commercial supported.
But the titles that they have here are very nice.
You know, not everything that they have is
something you're going to watch.
But that's the thing is they have a massive library.
The only thing you're going to need to be aware
of is that when you watch this, you are going to
get commercial breaks throughout whatever movie
or show you are watching.
Tubi is also a great destination
if you're looking for live newsfeeds.
And we'll talk more about live news feeds
in just a moment.
Sony Crackle, or just Crackle,
if you're looking for it on the app list.
Crackle is similar to Tubi.
Again, this is a looks and smells and feels a lot
like a Netflix, or a free version of Netflix.
But the difference here is the library
of content that's available and the Crackle originals.
So if I go over here to watch now,
I can check TV shows, movies.
If I'm signed in I can create a list
of things to watch later.
But in each of these, they do have crackle originals.
And you know, that's not the, it's not the best
most premium content of all time.
You know, this isn't HBO style stuff
but that doesn't mean it's not quality.
There is some pretty good stuff in here.
I've watched one or two and, and could recommend some
but we're not really doing that today.
I did want you to be aware of that though.
I should also mention FilmRise.
FilmRise is another Netflix cos player.
You know, another fake Netflix you might say,
commercial supported free content.
But there is one thing that I want to
point out with FilmRise that's pretty cool.
If you are really interested
in one specific type of content, then FilmRise is,
is an app that you want to be aware of.
Because if I scroll all the way back down here
to the very bottom to suggested channels, okay
now I see film rise, thriller, horror, comedy, action.
And a lot of these are going to be separate apps.
Okay? So you can get an entire free content app dedicated
to whatever your preferred genre is.
So if you absolutely love horror movies, then you go check
out FilmRise horror, and it will take you
to the Roku screen where you can download that app.
Pretty neat.
Next up is YouTube.
I mean, obviously YouTube is awesome.
You should be watching me on it all the time.
Right? Right.
Now, YouTube, you know about YouTube.
This is where you go
when you want to search whatever internet videos
you want to watch.
It's really great on your TV.
If you are doing something like let's say you want to check
out the Bucks versus the Packers and just the highlights
from yesterday's game,
then you go in and watch it
full-size on your TV, obviously after the ads play.
But there is one thing I want to point
out with YouTube that is going to be
of interest to news junkies specifically.
We already talked about NewsON
where if you've cut the cord
and now you're streaming that's where you're
going to go get your local news, right?
But if you want the national news and you want to
skip the shout factories that are cable news networks.
You can actually come on here to YouTube, go over here
to the news section and there's going to be live streams.
A lot of live streams.
Now it's not going to be again
it's not the shout factories
so you're not going to get all of those shows.
But if there is something important happening,
if there's a press briefing at the white house
or what have you, then the live feeds that from
the national news providers are going to be here on YouTube.
And I highly recommend this be a place that you
go to check that out.
And the very last app that I will mention is Spotify.
Spotify is another one of those ones
with a free option and a premium option.
but you don't have to go with the premium version.
If you don't mind commercial supported music
then you have Spotify and Spotify is available
on your smart TV devices like Roku.
So if you log into Spotify
you're going to get your entire library and you know
all of your playlists and all
of your podcasts and that sort of thing.
So if for whatever reason you have got your TV in the room
but you're not looking to watch anything.
You just want to listen.
Then Spotify is available for you to do that.
So there you have it, the top 10.
Well, okay.
I think there were a couple of bonus ones in there
but the top 10 free channels for your Roku
make sure you've got these.
And if you do then paying
for content becomes pretty much optional.
I'm not saying you won't want to get Netflix
and Hulu and all that stuff, but you don't have to
if you don't want to, now that you can get more content
than you ever could consume for free.
So you're welcome.
All right.
Thanks for watching everybody.
Make sure you give this video a like if it was helpful
don't forget to subscribe for more videos like this one.
I'll be doing similar videos in the coming weeks
for Fire TV and Apple TV and maybe some others as well.
So put in your requests in the comments below
and also let us know
if there are any channels that we missed, that you love.
Hit the comments below with those suggestions as well.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.