You don't need a cable bill to keep watching CNN. Here's every way to stream it online, and how to do it for free.
Reviewed and updated July 2026 by our cord-cutting team · 13 options
Never miss the latest breaking story with CNN, including news commentary and investigative reports in the fields of business, culture and much more.
You can stream CNN live without cable on Sling TV Blue, Sling TV Orange, DIRECTV, Hulu with Live TV, HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, and Max Bundle, CNN All Access, YouTube TV Sports + News + Entertainment Plan, Youtube TV News + Entertainment + Family Plan , YouTube TV, Spectrum TV Stream, or Youtube TV Sports + News Plan.
We routinely follow over a hundred live TV and streaming services in the US, closely monitoring their plans, features, and channel lineups. All of that work is on our cord-cutting hub.
Beyond this, we have been reviewing the best on streaming services since 2013, recommending highly-rated but little-known movies and shows: we find the gems that you haven't yet watched, that you will probably like.
Yes, with a free trial. CNN is on Hulu + Live TV, and you can watch it free for Hulu + Live TV's 3-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Hulu with Live TV combines Hulu’s on-demand films and TV shows with about a hundred live channels, including CNN. The streaming service has a nice range of sports, local, and news offerings, but its strength lies in entertainment. Since most Hulu with Live TV plans come bundled with Disney+, you also get on-demand access to Walt Disney brands like Marvel, Star Wars, Nat Geo, and Pixar.
It caps you at two simultaneous streams, the fewest of the big live-TV services; lifting that cap costs about $10 more a month.
Hulu + Live TV plans
Our breakdown of Hulu + Live TV →
Yes, with a free trial. CNN is on DIRECTV, and you can watch it free for DIRECTV's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
CNN is available in all of DirecTV Stream’s signature plans, which start at $86.99/month. These plans have everything from 4k channels and heavyweight DVR capabilities to regional sports networks and local channels. However, if the price is too much, DirecTV Stream also offers cheaper plans with significantly fewer channels called “genre packs.” The MyEntertainment genre pack, in particular, only costs $34.99/month and streams CNN, MSNBC, HLN, and 40 other channels. It also comes with the ad-supported tiers of Hulu, Disney+, and Max at no additional cost.
The price climbs steeply between tiers, and a regional sports fee gets added on top.
DIRECTV plans
Yes, with a free trial. CNN is on YouTube TV, and you can watch it free for YouTube TV's 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Thanks to its accessibility, familiar features, and unlimited cloud DVR, YouTube TV has become a top pick among cord-cutters. The live TV streaming service also boasts a channel lineup that covers all bases. It has sports (and sports add-ons), entertainment, lifestyle, and of course, news. Apart from CNN, it also streams MSNBC and BBC World News.
At around $83 a month it's one of the priciest options, and add-ons push the bill past $100 fast.
YouTube TV plans
No, not free. Sling TV carries CNN but has no free trial, so you pay from day one — at $45.99/mo it's the second-cheapest way to watch CNN on this list.
Sling Blue is the preferred Sling plan if you want a variety of news outlets to tune into. Apart from CNN, it also carries MSNBC, Bloomberg, HLN, and even local affiliates of ABC, FOX, and NBC in select markets. It costs just as much as Sling Orange, but adds an extra $5/month to areas that get local channels.
There's no ESPN on the Blue lineup, and local channels only come in a handful of markets.
Sling TV plans
No. Fubo doesn't carry CNN.
No. Philo doesn't carry CNN.
No. Paramount+ doesn't carry CNN.
No. Peacock doesn't carry CNN.
No. Frndly TV doesn't carry CNN.
No. Disney+ only streams the Disney family (ABC, FX, Nat Geo, ESPN and the Disney kids channels), and CNN isn’t part of it. The best way to watch CNN without cable is YouTube TV above (free-trial).
Yes, but only CNN Originals on demand. HBO Max pulled its live CNN Max feed on November 17, 2025, so what’s left is originals like Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown — there’s no live CNN news here.
When Warner Bros. Discovery folded discovery+ into HBO Max, the whole Discovery and Turner library came with it, so those networks stream on demand here.
No. There’s no Prime Video Channels add-on for CNN, so Prime can’t stream it on demand or live. The best way to watch CNN without cable is YouTube TV above (free-trial).
The honest way to watch CNN for free is a free trial, and the trick is not to spend them one at a time. Start one, then start the next when it ends, and you can string together a few weeks of free live TV back to back, usually enough to cover a tournament or a playoff run without paying for a month.
If you're cutting cable for CNN, odds are you want Investigation Discovery too. It's a sister channel, so every service above that carries CNN carries Investigation Discovery as well, and the same free trials get you both. See our full guide to watching Investigation Discovery without cable for the per-service breakdown.
| Service | From | Free trial | Plans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hulu + Live TV |
$82.99/mo | 3 days | 2 | Get it |
| DIRECTV |
$94.99/mo | 5 days | 4 | Get it |
| YouTube TV |
$9.99/mo | 7 days | 2 | Get it |
| Sling TV |
$45.99/mo | None | 3 | Get it |
CNN and the US services that carry it are geo-locked to the United States, so your login stops working the moment you leave the country. A VPN fixes that: connect to a US server and the service sees a US address again. The catch is that streaming platforms actively block most VPN traffic, so the VPN you pick matters far more than the service does. These three reliably get back in:
A huge US server network (thousands of IPs across 15-plus cities) with SmartPlay DNS baked into every server, so streaming just works without extra setup. The best value of the top tier on a two-year plan.
Best for streaming CNN with: Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV
Get NordVPN →The budget pick, and the one to get if the whole household travels: it allows unlimited simultaneous devices on one account, plus a Smart DNS for TVs. Reliable with the on-demand and lifestyle services.
Best for streaming CNN with: Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV
Get Surfshark →Whichever you pick, connect to a US city first, then sign in to CNN or the service that carries it as normal. Choose a VPN with a money-back window so you can confirm it un-blocks CNN before you commit.
No. CNN is a cable channel and doesn't broadcast over the air, so an antenna can't pick it up. An antenna only gets the free broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, The CW), which pair nicely with one of the services above; check which of those reach your address here.
Every service that carries CNN runs on the major streaming platforms, so you can watch on just about any TV, phone, or console. Here's how, device by device:
On Roku, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, add the channel from the Roku Channel Store, sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
On Amazon Fire TV, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, download the app from the Amazon Appstore, sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
On Apple TV, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, install the app from the App Store, sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
On Android TV & Google TV, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, grab the app from the Google Play Store, sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
On Chromecast, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV. The gap: DIRECTV and YouTube TV don't offer a Chromecast app. To set it up, cast it from your phone or use the built-in Google TV app, sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
On Samsung & LG smart TVs, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, install the app from your TV's own store (Tizen or webOS), sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
On phones & tablets, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, download the app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
On game consoles, you can watch CNN through Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. The gap: DIRECTV doesn't offer a game consoles app. To set it up, download the app from the Xbox or PlayStation store, sign in, and open CNN in the live guide.
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops CNN the month after you sign up hasn't saved you anything. So the first number we pay attention to is the real one, what you owe after the introductory month ends, not the figure in the ad. From there it comes down to whether the channels you actually want sit in the base plan or get stranded in an add-on, how the service behaves day to day (a slow app and a useless DVR wear on you faster than you'd expect), and how much of a fight it puts up when you decide to leave.
Whatever lands at the top of a list like this is the service that gets most of that right for the most people. Once in a while that's also the cheapest one. Usually it isn't.
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