About the project

A small independent project for watching world TV online

The idea

World TV Channels is a free directory and guide to the world’s television. It combines in-depth channel profiles — history, ownership, programming and how to watch — with a web player for live streams that broadcasters make officially and freely available. The goal is simple: help you discover and watch global TV in seconds, without accounts, set-top boxes or satellite dishes.

It’s designed for anyone curious about global television — from news junkies who want to compare how different countries cover the same story, to people living abroad who want a taste of home.

How it’s made

The project is developed by a small team in their spare time, with no outside funding and no affiliation to any particular broadcaster or media group. Running costs are covered by unobtrusive advertising banners — nothing more.

The site you’re using is a static website that plays live streams directly in your browser. There’s no app to install — it works in any modern browser on desktop and mobile.

Where the streams come from

Every channel in the player carries a stream that the broadcaster itself publishes free of charge on the open web — public broadcasters such as Deutsche Welle, France 24 and NHK World, state international services, and free ad-funded news channels. We verify each channel against this policy before adding it, and the video is delivered directly from the broadcaster’s own servers.

Channels that don’t offer a free official stream — pay-TV and licensed cable networks — are covered in the channel guide instead: detailed profiles with history, ownership, programming and a link to the official website. The content itself — programmes, news, films, advertising — belongs entirely to the respective channels. Our full policy is on the content & copyright page.

What we DON’T do

• We don’t host, rebroadcast or restream any content — verified streams play straight from the broadcaster’s servers.
• We don’t play streams a broadcaster hasn’t made officially and freely available.
• We don’t store anything about you on a server — we have no user server.
• We don’t require an account, email or phone number.
• We don’t track what you watch — your favorites and history stay in your browser.
• We don’t resell any data.

Technical details

The web player is a static site built with Astro and deployed on the edge. Live streams use HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) and are played with the open-source hls.js library, falling back to native playback on Safari and iOS. Your favorites and history are stored locally in your browser (localStorage) and never leave your device.

Blog

On our blog we publish articles about international TV channels, broadcasting history and online streaming. If you want to learn how IPTV works or discover new channels — take a look.

Get in touch

Have feedback, want to report a broken channel, or just say hello? Reach us on the contact page.