A TV service that offers legal access to all of the UK’s main TV channels, streamed to your device. It doesn’t sound remarkable these days – but one service was a decade ahead of the industry.
December 2013 – a new app has shot to the top of the iOS download charts in the UK. For the first time, users were offered safe and legal access to a range of UK TV channels that they could stream on their device.
The service officially launched months later in 2014, rolling out to more platforms and devices. For a time, the app was pre-installed on Samsung devices.
The app was TVPlayer, built by London-based Simplestream.
Until then, users struggled to stream their favourite TV channels if they were at all available online. Back in the early 2010s, many freely accessible TV channel streams were from providers that soon faced legal action and disappeared. And if channels were available online, licensing issues meant that some channels could only be accessed via wi-fi and not mobile connections. Some programmes couldn’t even be broadcast online at all.
While Sky offered a desktop and later a mobile service giving access to its channels to its subscribers, for the vast majority of users there was a massive gap in the market.
TVPlayer stepped in to fill the void, offering dozens of free streaming channels in one place.
The rise…
In its heyday, TVPlayer grew to include a package of pay TV channels. A portal offering a small sub-set of its channels was even launched on Freeview, designed to specifically offer those free channels that weren’t yet available on the platform.
In 2016, TVPlayer completed a £5 million investment round and secured 4G streaming rights for all of its channels. It reached 11 million desktop users and achieved over 4 million app downloads. The service was spun off into a separate, independent company.
The following year, TVPlayer even launched a cloud-based recording service, giving viewers the option to store up to 150 hours of content to watch later.
And fall…
But then the tide turned, becoming a victim of its own success.
Broadcasters could see how demand for streaming channels was rising and many set out to launch their own streaming products or revamp existing catch-up TV services to incorporate live streams.
As broadcasters became eager to drive users to their websites and apps, where they could monetise users more efficiently, deals with TVPlayer were left to expire and the service began to rapidly lose channels.
Meanwhile, the BBC insisted that its channels must only be found within the walled garden of the iPlayer. That resulted in the TVPlayer having to send users wanting BBC content across to the iPlayer to watch.
Samsung, which briefly pre-installed the app on a range of its mobile and tablets, went on to launch its own service: Samsung TV Plus.
In 2019, TVPlayer was sold off to French company Alchimie. Since then, the last remaining major channels have gone. The former ViacomCBS (Paramount) channels were the last major channels to exit the service. In its place, mostly internet-only niche streaming channels.
And for many viewers, the option to access TVPlayer at all has gone: there are now just four places left where you can still find TVPlayer. In fact, it’s a surprise to see the service is still online.
Next generation services arrive on the scene
While the late 2010s saw streaming become fragmented – viewers need to install numerous apps to streams each broadcaster’s portfolio of channels – that changed in the 2020s.
Sky and Virgin Media came fighting back, each aiming to grab a share of the streaming market, bringing their TV services to the internet. Existing carriage deals were expanded to give the pay TV companies full rights to stream channels to customers. BT (now EE) TV launched new receivers allowing viewers to receive services online, joining Sky and Virgin in providing online-only TV platforms.
The result: a new generation of streaming TV platforms, now designed first and foremost for the big screen, that closely resembles what TVPlayer set out to achieve: all major UK channels streamed to your device, all on one channel list.
Crucially now, the broadcasters and TV platform operators have taken back control of their streaming outlets, leaving no place for the ambitous upstart.