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If you’re an American obsessed with British shows like Love Island and The Only Way Is Essex, you may want to know how to watch ITV in the US for free to not miss a second of your favorite English programs.
ITV is one of the United Kingdom’s most-watched television networks with shows like The Voice UK, The Real Housewives of Cheshire, The Real Housewives of Jersey and, of course, Love Island UK, the original (and best) version of Love Island. Most programs on ITV, as well as its channels ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV, are available to watch online on the ITV Hub, the network’s exclusive streaming service with dozens of TV shows, miniseries, documentaries and movies. Viewers can also stream live on ITV to not miss their favorite programs as they air in real time.
The ITV Hub is also free with ads. The service also offers a no-ads plan for £5.99 per month or £59.99 per year after a seven-day free trial. (That equals to around $7.30 per month or $73.10 per year for Americans.) Sounds great right? Here comes the downside: The ITV Hub is only available to those located in the UK. However, there is a way to watch ITV in the US. Read on to find out how to watch ITV in the US ahead.
Image: Courtesy of ITV.ITV
How to watch ITV in the US
How can one watch ITV in the US?To watch ITV in the US, Americans will need a VPN, a service that allows users to set their computer’s location to another country and access websites that would otherwise be restricted by location. The most popular VPNs out there are ExpressVPN, NordVPN and PureVPN—all of which offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Read on for how to watch ITV in the US and which VPNs are the best.
ExpressVPN is one of the most popular VPN services, and the one we recommend above all others for a simple reason. The service—which allows users to set their location to more than 160 locations in 90 countries with unlimited bandwidth—offers a 30-day free trial and a money-back guarantee. After the free trial ends, Express VPN costs $8.32 per month for a 12-month plan ($99.95 in total), $9.99 per month for a six-month plan ($59.95 in total) or $12.95 per month for a monthly plan. Along with access to more than 160 locations, Express VPN—which takes about five minutes to set up—also promises lightning-quick connectivity, 24-hour live-chat support and allows users to connect to any device, from computers to phones to tablets. Of course, users can do more than watch international events and shows in the US with a VPN. Along with this event, VPNs also allow users to access international versions of Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max (which have different content than in the US) as well as stream international services like Hayu, which has access to programs like the Real Housewives, Below Deck, The Bachelor and hundreds of other reality TV shows.
Read on for step-by-step instructions on how to watch ITV in the US with ExpressVPN’s free trial.
Sign up for ExpressVPN and create an account
Log into your ExpressVPN account and click “Download” on the “Dashboard” or in “Set Up Your Devices”
Once you’ve installed Express VPN, enter the “Activation Code” from the “Dashboard” or in “Set Up Your Devices”
Once ExpressVPN is set up, change your location to “UK” by clicking the connect icon to read “Connected” and selecting the country in the “Smart Location” menu
Visit ITV’s website
Sign in or create an account and watch ITV in the US
To watch ITV in the US live, click “Watch Live” on the top and watch episodes live as they air local GMT
Nord VPN is another popular VPN service recommended by YouTubers like PewDiePie, Casey Neistat and Philip DeFranco. The service—which offers a 30-day free trial and a money-back guarantee—costs $3.29 per month for two-year plan ($78.96 in total), $4.99 per month for a one-year plan ($59.88 in total) or $11.99 per month for a monthly plan. Along with access to more than 59 countries, NordVPN also allows users to connect to multiple devices (from computers to phones to tablets) and offers a 24-hour live-chat support. Read on for step-by-step instructions for how to watch ITV in the US with NordVPN’s free trial.
Sign up for NordVPN and create an account
Log into your NordVPN account and click “Downloads” on the left-side menu
Once you’ve installed NordVPN, log into your account
Once NordVPN is set up, change your location to the “UK” by clicking “Quick Connect” or searching the country in the menu
Visit ITV’s website
Sign in or create an account and watch ITV in the US
To watch ITV in the US live, click “Watch Live” on the top and watch episodes live as they air local GMT
Another popular VPN service is Pure VPN, which offers a 31-day free trial and a money-back guarantee. After the free trial ends, users can sign up for Pure VPN for $1.99 per month for a two-year plan ($53.95 in total), $3.24 per month for a one-year plan or $10.95 per month for a monthly plan. Pure VPN offers more than 6,5000 servers in over 78 countries across the world, as well as 24-hour live-chat support. Read on for step-by-step instructions for how to watch ITV in the US with PureVPN’s free trial.
Sign up for PureVPN and create an account
Once you’ve created your account, scroll to the bottom of PureVPN‘s homepage and select the VPN that fits your device: Windows, MAC, IOS, etc.
Click “Download the app”
Once you’ve installed PureVPN, log into your account
Once PureVPN is set up, change your location to the “UK” by searching for the country in the right bar
Visit ITV’s website
Sign in or create an account and watch ITV in the US
To watch ITV in the US live, click “Watch Live” on the top and watch episodes live as they air local GMT
What’s on ITV?
What’s on ITV? One of the most popular ITV shows to watch in the US is Love Island UK. The show, which premiered in 2015, starts with 10 or so singles who are invited to a villa on a tropical island with the hopes of finding love. Within moments of meeting each other, the contestants must couple up. As couples, the contestants are required to sleep in the same bed and complete challenges with each other, such as a classic Love Island game where they have to transfer food from their mouth to their partner’s. As the season continues, more contestants are invited to the villa, and islanders already there have to make a choice about whether to stay with their current partner or couple up with someone new.
Each week, there’s a re-coupling and the contestants who aren’t in a couple are sent home. In the end, the public votes for their favorite couple among the finalists, and the winner receives a cash prize. On Love Island UK, that prize is 50,000 pounds. However, the money doesn’t go to both members of the couple. It goes to one person at random. That person must then decide whether to share the money with their partner or keep it for themselves.
Love Island UK is hosted by Maya Jama and narrated by Iain Stirling. Jama opened up about her experiences hosting the reality love show in a press release “I love being able to have a bit more of a personal relationship with the Islanders and being able to see all the behind-the-scenes of what goes into making the show. It’s a nice feeling to be involved in a show that I’ve loved and been a fan of for so long.”
After hosting the Winter 2023 season, Jama opened up about her experiences and how it landed in the greatest time of her life, “It was perfect timing,” she explained to Grazia. “You know when you really want something, but it doesn’t happen the first time round? So then when it does eventually happen, you’re like, yeah this makes a lot more sense now. I think because people have been saying they want me to host for a while, so I was scared I would let people down because a lot of people have championed me to get the role. I just wanted to live up to people’s expectations more than anything.”
In an interview with GQ in 2021, Stirling opened up about how his experience on Love Island UK has changed over the years. “In previous years, it might have been, ‘Redo this joke, please,’” he said. “That’s pretty uncommon these days because the producers trust us more [laughs]. Me and Mark, my writing partner — he works for ITV Studios in development and he’s the guy who actually came up with the Love Island format, 50-year-old Scottish vegetarian, really interesting guy — we’ve just really got the tone down. We’ve also just started asking them beforehand, like, ‘Can we say this?’ Saves us a lot of time. Now, it’s things like, ‘Can you say these people’s names in a different order because they’re sat on a bed in this order?’”
He also told the magazine about how he knew Love Island UK would be a success from the first episode. “God’s honest truth — the very first coupling. When I saw the footage of the very first, original coupling on Season 1, I was like, ‘This is unbelievable,’” he said. “I couldn’t believe how much I cared about everyone instantly. The first time a boy came down and they said, ‘Step forward if you like him,’ and no one stepped forward I was like ‘I can’t not watch this, it’s madness.’”
He continued, “Especially then, they were all such characters. Like there was this girl, Hannah, who was from Liverpool — and for an American, now that is a fuckin’ linguistic journey. Her accent was unbelievable. And she was a former Playboy bunny, and she had this insane swimsuit on, and had had a lot of work done. There’s a big thing with women in Liverpool, Scouse girls, on a Saturday you walk around a mall in Liverpool, every woman has got rollers in her hair, getting ready for a night out. She just had this massive blow dry, her hair was huge, platinum blonde, and she had these glass heels on. A builder from Essex got coupled up with her. I was just like, ‘I love this.’ I loved it. I honestly loved it.”
Despite his witty narrations, Stirling also told GQ that he would “never” hurt contestants on purpose. “No, never. We were never told to make fun of the show. [Mark and I] figured that out ourselves. We just thought, if we make fun of the show first, other people can’t really,” he said. “Also, the only reason it works is because the show’s actually quite good. Like with making fun of the dates, the Islanders can be at a rubbish table or whatever with plastic champagne glasses, but they still have to be on quite a nice beach.”
He continued, “If they were just in someone’s shitty backyard and it looked terrible, and I said ‘that’s terrible,’ it’s not funny. It has to come from a point of actually being quite good. If the show ever actually gets bad, we are in a difficult position, because it’s not comedy if you’re just saying something’s bad that is bad. I think self-deprecation is also a very British thing. I’s very British to say, ‘This is bad. Isn’t that funny?’ You’ve got to say ‘I’m shit,’ and then everyone will go ‘Oh yeah, I’m shit as well.’ That’s what Love Island does really well.”
What else is on ITV? Read on for a list of ITV’s most popular shows.
Endeavour
The Secret
The Midwich Cuckoos
Physical
Sanditon
Vera
Redemption
Love Island
Inspector Lewis
Shetland
The Ipcress File
The Bay
Good Witch
Murder in Provence
Vigil
Trigger Point
Four Lives
The Tower
Baby Fever
Our House
Sharpe
A Confession
Mr. Selfridge
The Girl Before
The Long Call
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
Angela Black
Holding
The Dry
Bancroft
Showtrial
Home Fires
Black Narcissus
The Loch
Little Boy Blue
Romulus
Tunna blå linjen
Wild Bill
10-Year-Old Tom
The Savoy
Thunderbirds Are Go
Vicious
A Spy Among Friends
The Kury
Tutankhamun
Beowolf: Return to the Shiedlands
Dirk Gently
The Moorside
ITV is available to stream in the US with a VPN. Here’s how to watch it for free.
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