Editorial Policy: How We Test, Rate and Fund This Site
These are the rules we hold ourselves to. They exist because this niche is unusually full of content written to sell things rather than to inform, and the only useful response is to be explicit about how we work.
Every review site claims to be independent. Rather than assert it, this page sets out the specific practices that make it checkable — what we test, how scores are constructed, what would get a product excluded entirely, and exactly where the money comes from.
If we breach any of this, we would rather you told us than assumed the worst. Contact details are at the end.
What we will and will not cover
The scope of this site is deliberately narrow, and one exclusion is absolute.
This is not a close judgement call. Selling access to subscription channels without a licence is a criminal offence under section 297A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, carrying up to ten years. Our reasoning is set out at length on the legal position page.
We do cover the technology those services misuse — M3U playlists, player apps, streaming protocols — because these are neutral tools with substantial lawful uses, and refusing to explain them serves nobody. What we do not do is provide routes to unlicensed content.
Also out of scope
- Sideloading walkthroughs. The apps with legitimate uses have their own documentation.
- Playlist sources. We do not link to them, including ones described as free.
- Workarounds for platform restrictions, including DRM and regional limits.
- Second-hand or "unlocked" hardware listings.
How we test
Every service is used for at least a full billing month before we publish a review, on hardware we bought.
- Same environment for everything. A 67 Mbps FTTC line in south London, through the same LG OLED, so comparisons are like for like.
- Provider hardware where supplied, and a Fire TV Stick 4K Max where it is not.
- Same content across services. We watch the same fixtures on the sports tiers rather than comparing different material.
- Throughput measured at the device, not at the router, and at peak time as well as off-peak.
- We go through the actual cancellation flow on every paid service, rather than describing it from a help page.
- Guides are performed, not transcribed. Every menu path in a walkthrough has been followed on real hardware.
We deliberately test on an ordinary connection rather than a gigabit line. Most British households are not on gigabit, and a product that only performs well above 500 Mbps has not been tested honestly.
Full details of the test bench are on our about page.
How scores are decided
Scores are out of ten, to one decimal place, and they are a summary of the review rather than a calculation. They are weighted roughly as follows.
| Factor | Weight | What we assess |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | 25% | What you pay against what you get, including the post-promotional rate. |
| Content | 20% | What is actually carried, and whether it justifies the price. |
| Reliability | 20% | Behaviour under load, at peak times and during major live events. |
| Interface | 15% | Navigation, search, and whether it works across apps. |
| Flexibility | 10% | Contract terms, and whether you can genuinely stop paying. |
| Hardware | 10% | Build, responsiveness, connectivity and longevity. |
Two consequences worth naming. First, flexibility is scored, which is why NOW ranks above Sky Stream on our services hub despite Sky Stream being the better product — the ability to stop paying is worth real money. Second, a promotional price never scores the product; we assess what you will pay once the introductory period ends.
Scores are revisited when a platform changes materially. They are not adjusted because a provider asked.
Money, and how it works
Two revenue sources, both disclosed.
- Affiliate commission. Some links to licensed providers earn a payment if you subscribe. It never costs you more than going direct.
- Display advertising. Standard programmatic advertising, which has no relationship to editorial content.
The separation rules
- Commission rates play no part in rankings. Reviewers are not told what any programme pays.
- No provider sees a review before publication. Not for comment, not for fact-checking, not at all.
- We do not accept sponsored posts, paid reviews, or guest posts placed for links. No exceptions.
- Free hardware is not accepted where it could create an obligation. We buy our own test devices.
- Negative conclusions are published regardless of whether a commercial relationship exists.
How we handle risk and harm
Several topics here can cost a reader money or expose them to legal trouble if we get them wrong. Those get handled differently from a hardware review.
Legal content
- We cite the statute by name and section so any claim can be checked independently.
- We distinguish clearly between sellers and buyers, because the offences and the realistic exposure are genuinely different.
- We do not overstate enforcement risk to scare people, and we do not understate it to reassure them. Mass prosecution of viewers has not happened in the UK, and we say so — alongside the database-seizure risk that people underestimate.
- We state plainly that this is not legal advice, written by television journalists rather than solicitors.
Money and benefits
- Prices carry the date they were verified, because a stale figure is worse than none.
- We show the post-promotional rate, not just the introductory one, since that is what you will actually pay for most of the contract.
- On benefits we point at official sources and encourage an independent check rather than making entitlement claims ourselves. The Pension Credit route to a free TV Licence matters too much to get approximately right.
- We flag scams explicitly on pages that attract them, particularly the TV Licence refund phishing aimed at older readers.
Dual-use technology
M3U playlists, Xtream Codes and player apps are neutral tools with genuine lawful uses, and they are also what unlicensed services are delivered through. Our approach is to explain how they work and refuse to supply routes to content — no playlist sources, no sideloading walkthroughs, no configuration help for unlicensed services. Understanding a format is not the same as being handed a subscription.
Accuracy and corrections
UK television pricing moves constantly, and we will occasionally be out of date or simply wrong.
- Every page carries the date it was last checked. Treat anything older than a couple of months as indicative.
- Prices are re-verified monthly against providers’ own sites.
- Where our figure and a provider’s figure differ, the provider is right. Always confirm before committing.
- Substantive corrections are made promptly and noted on the page.
- We do not silently delete pages that turn out to be wrong; we correct them.
Statements about the law are general information written by television journalists, not legal advice. We cite the specific statutes so you can check them, but if you are facing an actual enforcement action, speak to a solicitor.
To report an error, use our contact page.
Sourcing and evidence
Where a claim on this site comes from determines how much weight you should give it, so we try to make that visible rather than presenting everything in the same confident voice.
| Claim type | Source | How to treat it |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | The provider’s own site, on a stated date | Indicative. It changes constantly — confirm before committing. |
| Specifications | Manufacturer documentation, cross-checked against the device | Reliable, but marketing figures are optimistic by convention. |
| Performance and behaviour | Our own testing on the stated hardware and line | One household’s experience. Yours will differ with your broadband. |
| Legal statements | The named statute, cited so you can check it | General information, not legal advice. |
| Bandwidth figures | Measured at the device, not at the router | More conservative than provider minimums, deliberately. |
| Scores and rankings | Our editorial judgement against published criteria | Opinion, formed from the testing above. |
What we will not do with sources
- Present a specification as a test result. If we have not used something, the page says so.
- Cite a figure without a date. Anything that changes annually carries the date it was checked.
- Round a legal position into a slogan. Where the law is nuanced we explain the nuance, even where a simpler line would read better.
- Republish another site’s testing as our own. Where we reference external reporting, we say whose it is.
The specific hardware and connection everything is tested on is listed on our about page, deliberately including the fact that the line is an ordinary 67 Mbps rather than a gigabit connection.
Independence in practice
Claims of independence are cheap. These are the specific things we do and do not do, so the claim is checkable rather than asserted.
Commercial relationships
- No provider has editorial input. None sees a page before publication, for comment or fact-checking.
- Reviewers are not told commission rates. The person writing a review does not know what any programme pays.
- No paid placement exists. Position in a ranking cannot be bought, and nobody has ever been offered the opportunity.
- We accept no free hardware where accepting it could create an obligation. Test devices are bought.
- No sponsored posts, no paid reviews, no guest posts placed for links. We receive several of these requests a week and decline all of them.
Where our incentives genuinely point
Worth being honest about rather than pretending we have none. Affiliate revenue rewards us when a reader subscribes to a paid service. That creates an obvious pull towards recommending paid services over free ones.
Our defence against that is structural rather than a promise: the free platforms are recommended to a large share of readers, prominently, on the homepage and at the top of the services comparison. Freely, Freeview Play and Freesat pay us nothing at all, and we tell people to start there. If commission drove the rankings, that is not what the site would look like.
The same applies within the paid tier. NOW ranks above our Sky Stream review on our services hub despite Sky Stream being the better product, because contract-free flexibility is worth more to most readers than a better interface. That ordering is not the commercially optimal one.
Complaints and right of reply
If you are a provider and believe we have got something wrong about your service, tell us and we will check it. Three things follow.
- Factual errors are corrected promptly and noted on the page. We do not require a formal process for this — an email with the specifics is enough.
- Disagreements about judgement are not errors. If you think a score is harsh, we will listen, but a negative conclusion honestly reached from testing stands.
- We do not remove pages under commercial pressure. Withdrawing advertising or an affiliate programme in response to a review will not change the review.
If you are a reader and something here misled you, that is more serious than a provider complaint and we treat it that way. Tell us what you did on the basis of what we wrote and what actually happened. That is the most useful feedback we receive.
Contact details for both are on our contact page.
Use of AI
Worth being direct about, since it is a fair question to ask any publisher now.
- Every page is written and edited by a named human author, and attributed accordingly.
- Factual claims are verified against primary sources — provider sites, legislation, our own testing.
- Nothing is published unreviewed.
- Hands-on findings come from actual use, not from summarising other coverage.
Where we describe something as tested, it was tested on the hardware listed on our about page.
Frequently asked questions
Do you use AI to write these pages?
Every page is written and edited by a named human author and attributed accordingly. Factual claims are verified against primary sources — provider sites, legislation, our own testing — and nothing is published unreviewed. Where we describe something as tested, it was tested on the hardware listed on our about page.
Why do you use affiliate links at all?
Because the alternatives are worse. Charging readers would put the guides behind a paywall, and pure display advertising rewards volume over usefulness. Affiliate commission on licensed services aligns us with readers actually finding something worth subscribing to — and we keep it honest by recommending the free platforms, which pay us nothing, wherever they genuinely suffice.
How often is content reviewed?
Pricing monthly across every page. Full reviews are revisited whenever a platform changes materially — new hardware, a repricing, a significant feature change — and at minimum annually. The date at the top of every page is when it was last verified, not when it was first written.
Do you accept free products from providers?
Not where accepting one could create an obligation. Every test device on this site was bought. Where a provider supplies hardware as part of a subscription — a Sky Stream puck, an EE TV box — that is unavoidable, and we pay for the subscription like any customer.
What happens if a provider disagrees with a review?
Factual errors are corrected promptly and noted on the page. Disagreements about judgement are not errors — a negative conclusion honestly reached from testing stands. We do not remove or soften pages under commercial pressure, and withdrawing an affiliate programme will not change a review.
How do you decide what to write about?
From what people are actually searching for, then filtered by whether we can add something genuinely useful. The TV Licence hub exists because thousands of people a month look for an over-60 concession that does not exist, and nobody was giving them a straight answer.
Do affiliate links affect your reviews?
No. Reviewers are not told what any affiliate programme pays, and rankings are set on the criteria above. The clearest evidence is that we recommend free platforms — which pay us nothing — to a large share of readers, and rank NOW above the higher-value Sky Stream on flexibility grounds.
Why will you not review unlicensed IPTV services?
Because selling access to subscription channels without a licence is a criminal offence in the UK under section 297A of the CDPA 1988, carrying up to ten years. They are also poor products: court-ordered blocking makes them fail during live football, and there is no refund or support when they do.
How are your scores calculated?
They summarise the review rather than compute it, weighted roughly 25% value, 20% content, 20% reliability, 15% interface, 10% flexibility and 10% hardware. Promotional pricing never scores the product — we assess what you pay once the introductory period ends.
How do I report an error?
Through the contact page. Substantive corrections are made promptly and noted on the page itself. Where our pricing and a provider’s pricing differ, assume the provider is correct and tell us so we can update it.