If you’re trying to watch British TV in Australia, you’ll find the streaming sites don’t work. Whether it’s BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub or even UK Netflix, you’ll encounter errors when connecting to the site.
This is happening because these British streaming sites don’t have the rights to broadcast their content in Australia.
This can be annoying, especially if you’re a UK ex-pat and you want to watch your favourite British shows. But, don’t panic. There’s a very easy way to get around this issue.
All you need to do is fool these British streaming sites into thinking you’re watching it from within the UK. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually very simple.
This article will show you how to watch British TV in Australia.
See also:
- BBC iPlayer buffering with VPN? Try these EASY fixes! (November 2021)
- ITV Hub not working with VPN? Here are some EASY fixes! (Updated August 2021)
- How to watch ITV Hub abroad (outside the UK) 2021
How to watch British TV in Australia: Quick Guide
To watch British TV in Australia, you need to fool British streaming sites into thinking you’re accessing its content from within the UK. To do this, you need to change your Australian IP address to a UK IP address.
Follow these simple steps to watch British TV in Australia:
Create a new account with ExpressVPN ($6.67/month)
Download and install the new VPN app
Open your new app and connect to a server in the UK
Watch British TV in Australia
Why doesn’t British TV work in Australia?
British TV streaming sites like BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub don’t work in Australia because they don’t have the rights to broadcast their content in Aussie.
These UK streaming sites are for UK customers only. This is because the copyright and licensing agreements that British TV providers have with their content partners state that the content can only be broadcast in the UK.
If these British TV channels were to breach these agreements, they would not only be breaching their copyright and licensing stipulations. They would also be broadcasting content where they don’t have the rights to do so. It goes without saying, but this can be met with significant financial penalties.
To prevent that from happening, British TV channels block anyone outside of the UK from accessing their streaming services. This is why you’re running into errors when trying to watch British TV in Australia.
How do British TV streaming sites block my connection?
This is all to do with your IP address.
When you go online, you’re allocated a unique IP address. This is used by your device to communicate with the website or app you’re going to.
The issue here is, your in order for this communication to work, your IP address contains information about your physical location. If you’re in Australia, your IP address will show that you’re in Australia.
When you connect to British TV streaming services like BBC iPlayer or ITV Hub, your IP address is scanned by these sites for this location information. And if they see you’re not in the UK, the streaming services will block your connection.
How can I get around these blocks?
The way to get around these blocks is to make it look like you’re watching these British TV channels from within the UK. To do that, you need to change your Australian IP address to a UK IP address.
The easiest way to do that is using a reliable VPN like ExpressVPN ($6.67/month) or Private Internet Access ($2.03/month).
These VPNs do two things that will allow you to watch British TV in Australia. The first thing is they give you an anonymous internet connection. This means British TV channels cannot determine your physical location.
The second thing is they allow you to change your IP address location. If you’re trying to watch British TV in Australia, all you need to do is download ExpressVPN ($6.67/month) or Private Internet Access ($2.03/month), select a UK based server, and you’ll be given a UK IP address.
Now when you connect to British TV streaming sites, they’ll think you’re in the UK, and you’ll be able to watch the content. And just as easily as you turned it on, you can turn it off to get your Australian IP address back and watch Australian TV if you want to.
Will any VPN work?
VPNs are very popular, and there’s been an influx of them in recent years. As with anything this popular, some of them are good, some of them are not so good.
Free VPNs are in the not so good category. This is because they are easily identified and blocked by British TV streaming sites.
British TV streaming sites try to block VPNs. They do this using one simple measure, scanning for abnormal amounts of connections coming from the same IP address.
Usually, only a household of devices (8-10) will connect to a British TV streaming service via the same IP address. Anything more than that is considered abnormal.
This is a problem for free VPNs. Free VPNs have a massive amount of customers, and they don’t have enough IP addresses to keep up with demand. To deal with this, they force customers to share IP addresses. This is a problem because when British TV streaming sites see hundreds or thousands of connections coming from the same IP address, it knows it’s a VPN, and it blocks it.
The good news is ExpressVPN ($6.67/month) or Private Internet Access ($2.03/month) don’t have these problems. They have lots of IP addresses, so you won’t end up sharing with other customers, and on the off chance an IP address provided by ExpressVPN ($6.67/month) or Private Internet Access ($2.03/month) gets identified and blocked by British TV streaming sites, these VPNs will close that IP address and open a new one so you can watch British TV in Australia reliably.
The best VPNs to watch British TV in Australia
1. ExpressVPN 🥇
Why You Should Use ExpressVPN? It’s the fastest and MOST reliable VPN of 2022
Pros
- ✅ Fast servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 10-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 24/7 Live Chat
- ✅ Easy-to-use app
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- ❌ Expensive
Special Offer for you!
Get 3 extra months free when you sign up for a 12-month ExpressVPN plan. That’s 15 months in total for the price of 12.
Number of servers: 3,000+ | Speed: >80% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 160 in 94 countries | Devices supported: 5 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $6.66/month for 15 months
- $9.99/month for 6 months
- $12.95/month for 1 month
ExpressVPN ($6.66/month) is still the best VPN. And importantly, it ALWAYS has servers that are open with major streaming sites such as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, etc.
ExpressVPN is usually very good at playing Cat and Mouse with online streaming sites. Meaning, whenever one of its servers is blacklisted it creates a new one – giving its users a constant stream of servers that aren’t blocked. Needless to say, this is a valuable attribute if you’re looking for a VPN to unblock streaming sites.
Its app is easy-to-use and free to download on pretty much any device you can think of. Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, FireStick, Android TV, Roku, PS4, Xbox, Linux, even Apple TV (with a workaround). It’s got it all covered.
The app is another main reason this VPN is so good at unblocking TV streaming sites (that claim they block VPNs) is that its software takes a pragmatic approach to user management. While other VPNs tempt customers by promising them access to hundreds/thousands of servers in multiple countries, ExpressVPN does things differently.
With ExpressVPN you only have a handful of server locations to choose from. Once you select your location the app takes care of the rest. Assigning you to the fastest available server that’s not oversubscribed. This simple technique is so important, as it keeps ExpressVPN’s servers operating at lightning-fast speeds and prevents its IPs from getting blacklisted for “abnormal” usage in the first place.
Check out our full ExpressVPN review.
Special Offer for you
(30-day money-back guarantee)
2. Private Internet Access 🥈
The BEST low-cost VPN for streaming!
Pros
- ✅ Fast and reliable servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 10-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 24/7 Live Chat
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- ❌ Only 48 server locations
Special Offer for you!
Sign up for a 3-year plan with Private Internet Access and save 83% + 3 months free. That works out at $2.03/month.
Number of servers: 25,000+ | Speed: >75% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 70 in 74 countries | Devices supported: 10 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $2.03/month for 3 years
- $7.50/month for 6 months
- $11.99/month for 1 month
Private Internet Access is one of the leading no-log VPN services with over 1-million paying customers.
This VPN is one of the best in the industry at beating streaming sites’ VPN bans. It provides reliable connections with US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+ Amazon Prime Video, etc. It also allows 10 simultaneous devices to be connected to its servers at the same time, so you can share the account with your close friends.
If – for whatever reason – you’re not happy with Private Internet Access, there’s a 24/7 live chat support available to assist you with your problem. PIA also offers the industry-standard 30-day money-back guarantee.
From my tests (from New Zealand) I was able to get download speeds of 70 Mbps while connected to a UK server using the Private Internet Access VPN (my non-VPN speed is 100 Mbps).
Special Offer – Save 83%
(30-day money-back guarantee)
3. NordVPN 🥉
A very quick and trustworthy VPN
Pros
- ✅ Fast servers
- ✅ No logs
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 6-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
- ✅ Easy-to-use app
Cons
- ❌ No refunds for purchases from iTunes/App store
Special Offer for you!
Sign up for a 3-year plan with Private Internet Access and save 83% + 3 months free. That works out at $2.03/month.
Number of servers: 5,000+ | Speeds: >80% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 62 countries | Devices supported: 6 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $3.49/month for 2 years
- $6.99/month for 1 year
- $11.95/month for 1 month
NordVPN is the most widely-used VPN in the world. And it’s easy to see why. It’s a polished app that delivers fast connections (more on this later) to a massive network of VPN servers.
It’s the most reliable at unblocking popular streaming services too – US Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, etc. This is because NordVPN hired a full-time technical team (that’s responsible for monitoring its servers’ connections with popular TV streaming services) and has been aggressively investing in its network of IP addresses in key locations.
Another interesting thing to note is that NordVPN is an industry leader in its development of Nordlynx technology. Nordlynx is built using the WireGuard, a new VPN tunneling protocol designed to outperform current standards (OpenVPN and IPSec). The benefits, according to NordVPN, are dramatically faster transfer speeds while connected to a VPN. My tests – New Zealand to London – confirm that Nordlynx is currently the fastest VPN on the market. However, the difference isn’t dramatic, a few Mbps is all.
SPECIAL OFFER – SAVE 70%!
(30-day money-back guarantee)
4. Ivacy
A very quick and trustworthy VPN
Pros
- ✅ Fast servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ Dedicated streaming servers
- ✅ 5-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
- ✅ 24/7 Live Chat
Cons
- ❌ Only 5 devices
- ❌ Sometimes runs slow
- ❌ Occasionally block by streaming sites for several days
Special Offer for you!
Sign up for Ivacy and enjoy a 7-day trial with no strings attached
Number of servers: 1,000+ | Speed: >65% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 275 in 100 countries | Devices supported: 5 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $1.16/month for 5 years
- $3.50/month for 1 year
- $9.99/month for 1 month
If you’re looking for an excellent VPN, with an even better price tag, Ivacy ($1.16/month) is a great option.
This VPN has all the features you need to stream BBC iPlayer, in HD, from any country in the world. I’ve been testing the app recently on Mac, PC, Android, iOS and FireStick and the results have been impressive – unlocking BBC iPlayer, US Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, etc. with ease.
The Ivacy app is a little different in regards to its UX (user experience). Instead of just selecting a UK server, you need to select the specific BBC iPlayer server. Don’t worry, this isn’t a bad thing – by connecting to a dedicated BBC iPlayer server, it simply means that you’re connecting to an IP address that Ivacy knows works with BBC iPlayer.
For an extra $1.99/month (£1.74) you can add-on a dedicated IP. This will buy you sole access to an IP address in a country of your choice, meaning you won’t have to share your IP (and speeds) with any other use. I don’t recommend this though, using the regular Ivacy servers is enough 95 per cent of the time.
Special Offer – 7-day FREE trial!
(30-day money-back guarantee)
5. CyberGhost
A very quick and trustworthy VPN
Pros
- ✅ 1-day free trial
- ✅ Reliable servers
- ✅ Thousands of IP addresses
- ✅ 7-simultaneous connections
- ✅ 30-day money-back guarantee
- ✅ Easy-to-use app
Cons
- ❌ Expensive
- ❌ Average speed scores
SPECIAL OFFER – 1-DAY FREE TRIAL
Take advantage of CyberGhost’s 1-day FREE TRIAL!
Number of servers: 1,000+ | Speed: >65% | Bandwidth: Unlimited | IP locations: 275 in 100 countries | Devices supported: 5 | Live chat: Yes | 30-day money-back guarantee: Yes
- $2.75/month for 3 years
- $3.69/month for 2 years
- $5.99/month for 1 year
- $12.99/month for 1 month
CyberGhost is one of the more established VPNs on the market. It has a well-established, and well-tested global network of servers that perform well.
From my tests over the past several months, CyberGhost has no trouble at unblocking major streaming services – US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max etc. This VPN performed well at maintaining download speeds, well above 65 per cent of my regular (non VPN) ISP speed.
That said, there’s nothing really unique about the service. Which forces you to look at its price-point. And there’s nothing special here. Its short-term $12.99/month price tag puts is well above the industry average of $10.10/month. Similarly, its long-term $2.75/month for 3 years deal isn’t much of a “deal” either.
Oddly, CyberGhost’s most unique feature is its a 1-day, no obligations, free trial. This is an appealing offer to customers who are new to VPNs. However, it’s important to remember that most reputable VPNs will offer customers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so try not to be too seduced by the offer.
SPECIAL OFFER – 1-DAY FREE TRIAL
(30-day money-back guarantee)
