Technology

There are, the observant will have noticed, now many ways to watch Internet TV on your TV. No more tiny laptop screens or sitting in front of your desktop – buy yourself an Amazon Fire Stick, a Google Chromecast device, an Apple TV, a Now TV box or one of the many other streaming devices on the market, connect it to your TV, connect it to your WiFi and you’ll be watching Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPlayer and all the rest in just a few moments.

Among these devices is the Roku, of which I have an amazing three different devices for different occasions. The basis of the Now TV box and even a Roku TV, the Roku offers all the usual streaming services, including Now TV, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+, as well as all the usual UK TV catch-up services, including iPlayer, All 4, ITV Hub, My5 and UKTV. Here’s my main Roku channel list:

That doesn’t make it any different to most of the other devices. But where it does excel is in its ability for pretty much anyone, including a back bedroom developer, to create streaming channels of their own and offer vastly more channels than most other devices (Apple TV – I’m looking at you here).

Here, for example, are my mid and lower channels:

So there’s some international news services, including Al Jazeera and France 24 (English and French available, as well as Spanish, I think). GreekTV does what it says on the tin, offering just about every Greek-language streaming service out there from Greece, Cyprus and elsewhere. ANT1 I quite like, even if it always seems to be showing Γυναίκα Χωρίς ‘Ονομα (Woman without a name) whenever I tune in:

But down the bottom, yes, you saw them: channels dedicated to showing every single episode of 1960s ITC shows The Baron and The Saint.

Among all those channels is Roku’s own free TV service, The Roku Channel, and inspired by this week’s discovery that it has the UK premiere of Westside, I decided to investigate further to see what other TV it – and other channels – might secretly be harbouring.

Here’s what I found on two of them: The Roku Channel and Plex. Turns out you don’t need a separate channel for The Saint – the Roku Channel has all the episodes, too.