Thinking About Trying Frndly TV? Check Out My First Impressions
Frndly TV offers a relatively small number of cable channels, but its price can’t be beat.
Live TV streaming services may be a relatively new way to watch cable channels, but there is still a wide variety of such services for customers to choose from. Some come with huge channel lineups of more than 100 networks, and a price point that matches the enormous amount of programming that they bring. Frndly TV, however, is different. With monthly plans starting at just $8 per month, Frndly cuts the price and the channel count, providing just a handful of family-friendly networks at a price that will work with any budget. I recently signed up for the skinny-bundle service, so check out my first impressions of Frndly as a new subscriber below!
What Do You Need to Know About Frndly TV
What’s Frndly TV’s Free Trial Like
Frndly TV makes its free trial incredibly straightforward. It’s seven days in length for every user, so there’s no guesswork involved in figuring out how long you can watch for free like there is with other live TV streamers. During the sign-up process, Frndly makes a point of telling new customers what day they’ll be charged for their subscription, and how much they’ll have to pay in total at that time.
Monthly or Annual Plan?
Just a heads up, one of the trickier aspects of a Frndly TV subscription comes when you’re signing up for the service. The service offers you cheap monthly rates up front, but once you click on those rates you may notice you’ve chosen an annual plan as opposed to monthly. Frndly packages work out to be cheaper on annual plans than by going month-to-month, but you’ll get less freedom to choose.
For example, when I subscribed, Frndly said the monthly rate for its Classic package was $8. When I advanced to the next screen, it gave me the option of choosing whether to go monthly or annual, but it was only on that screen that I noticed the $8 price was for the annual subscription, which requires payment upfront. The month-to-month rate was then shown to be $10 per month.
So, pay close attention to which package you’ve picked before you commit, as the per-month price for annual plans is not the same as what you’ll pay for the freedom to stay month-to-month.
Is Using Frndly TV Easy?
The Frndly TV guide will be very familiar to most who have used a pay-TV plan of any kind in the past as it has a fairly standard grid format. However, the way that the channels are arranged in the guide leaves something to be desired. While, it features A&E at the top, there did not seem to be a specific rhyme or reason to the order of the channels — although you could sort alphabetically if you wish. Frndly mixes pay-TV channels and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels together instead of separating them as other streamers do. While the number of channels on Frndly is smaller than most other distributors, it would be nice if all of the cable channels were together in the guide, with the streaming channels together afterward.
Clicking on a title in the guide pulls up a layover menu at the bottom of the screen. This allows viewers to either watch an episode live, start it over, or record it using Frndly’s DVR. Viewers can also browse any episode of that particular title that is available on-demand. I found that aspect of the guide very convenient, especially the feature allowing me to start episodes over if watching live would force me to join in the middle.
Choosing the “Movies” tab at the top of the screen will show viewers a selection of movies coming to live TV channels and when they will air, as well as a selection of titles you can stream on-demand. One feature of this section that I like is the “72-hour look back” row, which lets viewers watch movies that aired on networks like the Hallmark Channel in the past three days. It’s a great way to catch up on something you might have missed.
The TV tab is a lot like the Movies tab, and it too features a “72-hour look back” row that allows you to see programming that aired live sometime in the last few days. It has all the rows you’d expect; shows that are on live now, trending titles, series that are available on-demand, and more.
In all, it’s a highly user-friendly layout that, if a bit simple, nevertheless puts all your options at your fingertips with just a few clicks.
Is Frndly TV’s DVR Easy to Use?
Since I signed up for Frndly TV’s Classic package, I got access to its unlimited Cloud DVR service. Viewers who pick the $8-per-month Basic plan don’t get the DVR function with their subscription; it’s reserved for Classic and Premium customers.
That being said, I thought Frndly TV’s DVR function was as straightforward as it could be. When you click on a title to record, you can choose to tape just the episode in question or all episodes of that show scheduled to air in the future.
Once you’ve chosen a show to record, the episode or episodes you’ve picked will all be available in the “My Stuff” tab, accessible with just a click.
What Don’t You Get with Frndly TV?
With a monthly subscription starting at just $8, Frndly TV is definitely the cheapest streaming service on the market that carries multiple cable channels. As per usual, you get what you pay for, but Frndly doesn’t make any pretensions about offering content it doesn’t really have.
To start with, Frndly won’t include any broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC, and it doesn’t carry national cable sports channels like ESPN, FS1 or TNT. Most of the biggest cable channels on the market like AMC, CNN, FX, Fox News, and others are also unavailable.
What Frndly TV does provide is a huge selection of family-friendly entertainment. It carries A&E, Great American Family Hallmark Channel, [History Channel], and Lifetime, as well as dozens of free streaming channels packed with entertainment that viewers of all ages can enjoy safely.
Final Thoughts
I’ve really enjoyed using Frndly TV. It’s a fantastic way to get a huge amount of entertainment for the price I paid, and the user interface is very simple to use.
Have no illusions about what Frndly TV is before you sign up. There are a ton of features and channels that you may be accustomed to getting from a pay-TV plan that you won’t get from Frndly, including cable news, sports, and entertainment channels that some customers might think of as dealbreakers.
But if you’re only looking for entertainment that everyone in your household can enjoy, Frndly TV might be perfect for you. It offers thousands of hours of entertainment that all ages can watch and its price is unbeatable.
Frndly TV
Frndly TV is a live TV streaming service with over 40 channels for $7.99/month. Each plan is designed to provide a skinny bundle of family-friendly channels at a reasonable price. The service will appeal most to fans of Hallmark channels. It does not offer news, sports, or local channels.