Hidden upgrade on Roku unlocks 17 free live TV channels today – but trick adds 250 if you haven’t tried it already

A TROVE of free television is just waiting to be collected on your Roku streaming devices.

One popular method of legally bagging free TV unlocks 17 new channels today – and hundreds more if you’ve never tried it.

Roku has plenty of free TV on offer if you know where to look

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Roku has plenty of free TV on offer if you know where to lookCredit: Alamy

It works by downloading Pluto TV, a totally free streaming app on Roku.

Pluto TV is ad-supported, which means you’ll have to watch commercials but won’t pay a penny to stream.

The app offers “thousands” of movies and TV shows on an on-demand basis.

And it also serves up more than 250 channels if you download it today.

Excitingly, another 17 channels just joined the roster, as spotted by Cordcutters News.

It’s great if you’re a fan of local news, as the full list of new channels includes:

  • Fox 5 Atlanta
  • Fox 7 Austin
  • Fox 32 Chicago
  • Fox 4 Dallas Fort Worth
  • Fox 2 Detroit
  • Fox 26 Houston
  • Fox 11 Los Angeles
  • Fox 6 Milwaukee
  • Fox 9 Minneapolis-St Paul
  • Fox 5 New York
  • Fox 35 Orlando
  • Fox 29 Philadelphia
  • Fox 10 Phoenix
  • Fox 2 San Francisco
  • Fox 13 Seattle
  • Fox 13 Tampa Bay
  • Fox 5 Washington DC

Of course Pluto TV doesn’t just offer news – it has an enormous selection of content.

It has channels across categories like movies, comedy, classic TV, westerns, sci-fi, drama, true crime, reality TV, entertainment, game shows, sports, and history.

There’s also a kids section too if you’ve got any youngsters watching.

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It’s worth noting that Roku isn’t the only place that you can watch Pluto TV.

The app is also available on rival streaming plug-ins like Amazon Fire TV Sticks and Apple TV.

You can also get it on Xbox and PlayStation, as well as on TV brands like LG and Samsung.

And there’s always the option to watch in a web browser too.

Stream swapping – the easy way to cut your bills?

Here’s what Sean Keach, The Sun’s Head of Technology and Science, thinks…

It’s no secret that TV streaming apps are costing more and more.

Not only are prices shooting up, but we find ourselves asked to pay for an increasing number of apps and services.

And when you combine those TV bills with your music streaming, mobile and internet fees, and every other drain on your bank account, it all starts to get a bit much.

One of the best ways to cut your TV bills is to simply cancel all of your streaming subscriptions and only sign up to one per month.

Pick an app like Netflix, Disney+, or Apple TV+ and smash through all of the content you want to watch on that app.

Then the next month, swap to something else.

And once you’ve done them all, you can cycle back to the start again.

It’s an easy way to avoid forking out for a rolling library of streaming apps with more content than you could possibly watch.

Also don’t forget that paid-for streaming isn’t the only game in town.

There are loads of apps that don’t cost a penny to enjoy, and downloading a few will unlock thousands of live TV channels plus tens of thousands of movies and shows.

Try apps like Tubi, Amazon Freevee, The Roku Channel, Plex, and Pluto TV to get some ad-supported television without having to pay any monthly fees.

Streaming free TV is a great way to cut your monthly bills.

The downside is generally watching ads, but even some paid-for plans on Netflix, Disney+, and HBO’s Max now show you commercials.

So you might find that the trade-off is worth it to bag totally free TV.

It’s also worth trying some other free TV apps like Tubi, Plex, Amazon Freevee, and The Roku Channel.

FREE STREAMING! Apps offer no-cost TV

Here are some of the most popular apps that offer at least some free streaming content…

  • Tubi
  • Amazon Freevee
  • Plex TV
  • The Roku Channel
  • Sling Freestream (via Sling TV)
  • FilmRise
  • NewsON
  • Fawesome TV
  • Pluto TV
  • Local Now
  • Haystack News
  • Red Bull TV
  • Free Movies Plus
  • PBS Kids Video
  • PBS
  • Xumo Play