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British communications regulator Ofcom is recommending to the United Kingdom’s government that 15 connected TV platforms, known as television selection services, should be designated by officials as it is critical viewers can easily find and discover the diverse range of high-quality content that public service broadcasters (PSBs) offer for UK audiences, including trusted and accurate news.
Ofcom recommend that the following 15 connected TV platforms (plus any subsequent versions of these platforms) should be designated: Amazon Fire TV OS 6, 7 and 8; Android TV 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14; Apple TV OS 18; Freely; Google TV 10, 11, 12 and 14; LG WebOS 22, 23, 24 and 25; Roku OS 14; Samsung Smart Hub (Tizen) 7, 8 and 9; Sky Entertainment OS; Sky Q; VIDAA OS U6, 7, 8 and 9; Virgin Media Horizon; Virgin Media TiVo on V6 ITE; YouView on EE TV (Sagemcom ITE) and YouView on Sony ITE.
The regulator said in a statement yesterday that the decision to recommend to the government to designate the services was taken after wide consultations with stakeholders, and as part of this, the Media Act 2024 introduced a new online availability and prominence regime for how PSB TV players are distributed on connected TV platforms.
Under Part 2 of the Media Act, the designated television selection services must ensure that BBC iPlayer and other PSB TV players designated by Ofcom are available, prominent and easily accessible.
“As part of Ofcom’s implementation work, we must provide a report to the (UK’s) Secretary of State setting out our recommendations on the designation of connected TV platforms. … following consultation and having applied the principles and methods set out in our April statement, we are publishing that report,” the regulator said in the statement.
Taking account of the points raised by stakeholders in response to its consultation in July 2025, the regulator assessed the number of users of connected TV platforms on the basis of what it considers to be the best available metric — the number of platforms installed on relevant devices in UK homes that have been actively used in the last year.
Applying this metric, Ofcom said, it was of the view that a platform must have at least 700,000 active users if it is to be considered to have a significant number of users.
“We recognise that, for some platforms, multiple versions may be in use. In those cases, we recommend that the designations should apply only to versions available on the market in July 2025, when we published our consultation, as well as any subsequent versions,” Ofcom said.
