A good alternative to basic cable?

Mindless channel surfing is a beautiful art form that’s sort of been lost to time thanks to the rise of on-demand streaming. And Roku is as responsible for that as anyone. So it’s atoning by offering Roku device owners a replacement…of sorts. 

Last week, Roku added a bundle of new live TV broadcasts to the Roku Channel app, which is normally a hub for free, ad-supported content on the company’s streaming devices. The addition of new channels wasn’t the real news, though, as Roku also launched a live TV guide not unlike the ones you’d find on cable or satellite. 

So it’s a newer and fresher way to access the Roku Channel’s live TV channels, but is it worth your time? 

The Good: Free news channels, Clean TV channel guide UI

To start, you’ll need to find the Roku Channel app within the Roku interface. You may have deleted it or even moved it to a part of the UI you would never think to look — and we can’t blame you for that. Streaming devices are generally used for big-name streaming apps like Netflix and Hulu anyway. Just go to the Roku channel store on your device and search for “Roku Channel” if that’s the case. Once you’ve located and opened the Roku Channel, there should be a “Live TV Channel Guide” icon in the content carousel. And that’s what I’ll be addressing today. 

Once you’re there, I reckon you’ll figure out what you’re doing pretty quickly. It functions much like a regular TV guide: Channels are arranged vertically on the left side and their respective programming is laid out horizontally to the right. The Roku remote’s directional pad is used to navigate the guide and it does so admirably, though a lack of channel buttons on the remote hinders it a little bit. The channels are also numbered for some reason, but that’s not especially useful at the moment.

Anyway, just click on a channel you want to watch and you’ll be taken right to it. It’s pretty straightforward. Pressing up and down on the directional pad will allow you to browse the channel selection, while pressing left will take you back to the channel guide. It’s all reasonably snappy and loading a new channel only takes a couple of seconds, which puts the live TV service roughly in line with something like YouTube TV or AT&T TV. There’s no real visual flair to it, but that’s fine. White text on a black background is attractive enough in this case, but more importantly, it’s functional.

In terms of usefulness, the best argument I can make for Roku’s new live TV feature is that it offers a decent selection of news channels from across the spectrum. ABC News and Reuters have 24-hour streams on here, as do Yahoo! Finance, Cheddar, Newsy, NowThis, USA Today, and, unfortunately, One America News (womp womp). Google it if you aren’t familiar. Or, actually, don’t.

Regardless of your feelings on that particular issue, it’s good to have all of those other news channels during this particular moment in history. The fact that I can turn on my Roku and immediately watch a stream of a big congressional hearing or important election results is great. That I paid zero dollars to make that happen is delicious icing on the cake. 

If the Roku Channel only offered news channels for free, that’d be just fine. However, there are dozens more channels to comb through and that’s where things get a little dicey.

The Bad: Iffy channel selection, mediocre video quality

In total, there are more than 100 channels available in the Roku Channel’s live TV catalog right now. So it’s really, really tough to criticize that selection too much considering you don’t have to pay a cent to watch any of it. If there’s no financial burden on the consumer then you can just ignore it, right?

Well… that may be the case, but since we’re here, let’s talk about it. 

Again, the Roku Channel’s live TV offering is not a replacement for a cable or satellite subscription. It’s not even something like Sling, where the cheapest plan options give you about half of the channels you would want from a cable subscription. Many of the  live TV channels offered by the Roku Channel are either things you’ve probably never heard of, or watered-down versions of things you have heard of.

Not that this is all bad! For example, there are MTV-, BET-, and Comedy Central-branded streams that just play reruns of old shows like Next and Chappelle’s Show. There’s real value to that, in my mind, but you should know going in that you’re not getting the real live versions of those networks. There’s also, interestingly, a network that seems to only play episodes of Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, which is one of the most hilariously specific (but potentially entertaining) things I can imagine.

If sports are your thing, you may want to look elsewhere. There are several sports-themed networks on here, but instead of mainstays like ESPN, you get Stadium and fuboTV. Not that those are inherently bad or anything. But once the big four North American sports leagues come back from quarantine hiatus, you may not find the most high-profile games broadcasting live from those stations because the bigger-name networks retain the exclusive rights. Having said that, there are some networks that broadcast things like esports and soccer, so some sports fans are undoubtedly being served by the Roku Channel even if I’m not, personally.

The rest of the Roku Channel’s live TV listings goes on and on like this. Instead of offering Cartoon Network, kids’ entertainment is handled by things like Kid Gamer TV (which was broadcasting Minecraft videos at the time of writing) or a Kidz Bop station. Instead of HBO (which you can obviously watch on a Roku device with a subscription), you get some films through FilmRise and Xumo. It bears repeating: I can’t be too harsh on these “channels” because all of this is free. It’s just not the same as having cable and you need to know that going in.

The more justifiable criticism I have for live TV on the Roku Channel is the video quality. I don’t really care that channels take a little bit to buffer when you select them because that’s a tale as old as time when it comes to streaming. But once they do buffer, things don’t look great. Sports and news aren’t streamed at the same high frame rate as you would get on cable. That isn’t necessarily unforgivable, but it does put Roku’s offering a firm step behind superior streaming alternatives like YouTube TV. 

I also don’t have the tools to precisely measure resolution at home, but you’re definitely not getting the most crisp image the majority of the time. Whether it’s a La Liga soccer game or the 2011 Jason Statham mediocrity Blitz, everything looks a little blurry on my modestly sized 4K TV. The “It’s free!” refrain only goes so far when the actual viewing experience isn’t all that great.

The Verdict

I dig what Roku has done here, but not without some caveats. Managing expectations is one of the most important things you can do in life and that remains true with live TV on the Roku Channel. It’s certainly a fun thing to idly browse when you’re bored. And I like having something on my TV that I don’t really need to pay attention to while I work.

Just don’t go in thinking you’ve beaten the system and gotten access to a real live TV experience without throwing down any cash. You aren’t getting the same channel selection you would get with cable, instead settling for a bunch of (admittedly amusing) half-measures. And they don’t look great either, due to the average video quality. 

The Roku Channel does approximate one of the most important reasons anyone should still have a cable subscription, which is access to the news of the day, but that’s about it. If you want to watch the biggest games in sports or the most popular shows as they air, you’ll still have to go elsewhere… and pay.