ITV, the largest commercial broadcaster and streamer in the UK, has taken a significant step forward joining the launch of Freely, a streaming platform that delivers free live and on-demand TV from major public service broadcasters in the UK. Supported by Akamai’s suite of content delivery and security solutions, ITV is transforming the way audiences enjoy free TV, all without the need for aerials or satellite dishes.
The changing landscape of TV in the UK
Public service broadcasters like ITV are seeing rising demand for streaming services in the UK. Freely is part of that evolution — an all-in-one platform where viewers can access top TV shows, both live and on demand, from a variety of UK broadcasters. This is a major shift toward making free TV more accessible and interactive for users, while keeping pace with the growing dominance of streaming.
The Freely platform is integrated directly into smart TVs, eliminating the need for additional hardware or app switching, and offering a seamless way for users to enjoy content. Whether you’re pausing and resuming live TV or exploring a new series, Freely is designed to simplify and enhance the user experience.
The role of Akamai
ITV’s long-standing partnership with Akamai — now spanning more than 15 years — was critical in bringing Freely to life. Akamai provides ITV with an array of cloud-based solutions that ensure a smooth, secure, and scalable streaming experience. For Freely, ITV leveraged Akamai’s content delivery network (CDN), web application and API protection (WAAP), and bot management solutions to deliver a reliable service to millions of viewers across the UK.
Akamai’s CDN enables seamless delivery of high-quality video streams, ensuring that ITV’s content reaches viewers quickly, regardless of location or peak traffic times. This is essential for maintaining a high-performance streaming service during live events or popular shows, where concurrency can skyrocket.
Looking to the future
Akamai’s edge computing solutions and continuous innovation in areas like low-latency streaming and high-performance media delivery open the door to even more exciting possibilities. These advancements will allow ITV to continue leading the charge in transforming the broadcast industry while ensuring the scalability and future-proofing of Freely.
Freely marks an important milestone for ITV and the broader UK broadcast industry. With Akamai’s backing, ITV is delivering a next-generation streaming platform that offers all the benefits of free TV while keeping pace with the digital age. As Freely continues to expand and innovate, Akamai will remain a key partner in ensuring its success.
About Akamai
Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense in depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai’s full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world’s most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence. Learn more at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on X and LinkedIn.
