How do you get BBC iPlayer on a smart TV?

Pretty much any television you hoik off the shelves these days is a so-called “smart TV”. If you’ve just bought a new set, you might be wondering how you get BBC iPlayer on a smart TV? Wonder no more.

Install the iPlayer app on a smart TV

To get BBC iPlayer on your smart TV, you’ll normally need to install an app from the TV’s app store. (The other method is to use a streaming device, which we’ll come to shortly.)

It’s impossible for us to list how to do this on every smart TV out there, because there are so many makes and models. However, it generally involves diving into the TV’s menu screen, looking for an app store and searching for the BBC iPlayer.

Here’s how to find it on a couple of leading brands:

Get BBC iPlayer on Samsung smart TVs

Again, this won’t apply to every model of Samsung Smart TV, but these instructions should work on most modern Samsung sets.

1. Press the Home button on your remote control
2. Scroll left until you reach ‘Apps’ and select that
3. Search for ‘BBC’ in the app store and select the BBC iPlayer app – click to install it
4. You should now find the app among your installed apps – you may wish to pin it to the home screen to make it easier to access in future

Get BBC iPlayer on LG smart TVs

As above, this won’t apply to every LG model, but the instructions should be relatively similar.

1. Press the Home button on your remote control
2. Navigate to the Home Dashboard
3. Once in the Home Dashboard, select the apps or app store facility
4. Search for ‘BBC’ in the app store and select the BBC iPlayer app to install it

How to get the iPlayer on any TV

You don’t have to rely on smart TV app stores to get the BBC iPlayer. Pretty much any TV with a HDMI port can get the BBC iPlayer via a streaming device. These connect to your Wi-Fi network and stream the content to your TV set. Aside from the BBC iPlayer, they also have apps for Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Sky Now and many other streaming services.

Such devices are very cheap and unobtrusive. The Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite, for example, costs only £30 and is often discounted further in Amazon’s regular sales. If you want 4K picture quality, you’ll need to step up to the Fire TV Stick 4K which costs £50.

If you don’t want to give Amazon any more of your money, the dinky Roku Express costs only £20. It has other models that can step up to 4K streaming.