You don't need a cable bill to keep watching TBS. 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 · 10 options
TBS is known for two things: sports and comedy. The Turner channel famously airs the Stanley Cup Playoffs, All Elite Wrestling matches, March Madness, a couple of NBA games, and more postseason MLB games than any other network. On the comedy side, it's home to reruns of Warner classics like Modern Family, Friends, Young Sheldon, and American Dad. Not a lot of originals, but it combines the best of both worlds for a lot of people.
TBS is available without cable on Sling TV Blue, Sling TV Orange, DIRECTV, Hulu with Live TV, DirecTV MySports Skinny bundle, YouTube TV Sports Plan, Youtube TV Sports + News Plan, YouTube TV Sports + News + Entertainment Plan, YouTube TV, or Spectrum TV Choice.
The cheapest way to watch Tbs is Sling TV Orange for $45.99/month.
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Yes, with a free trial. TBS 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.
Like TBS, Hulu with Live TV has a good mix of comedy and sports. Comedy Central and a big chunk of Hulu Originals provide the former, while sports channels like TBS, TNT, TruTV, and ESPN provide the latter. It’s not as comprehensive as the competition (especially since WWE recently moved to Netflix and Peacock), but it has enough to justify its high price. The only real downside, aside from the price, is that Hulu with Live TV only allows up to two simultaneous streams.
Close to $90 a month, and it caps you at two simultaneous streams, the fewest here; lifting that cap costs another $9.99.
Hulu + Live TV plans
Our breakdown of Hulu + Live TV →
Yes, with a free trial. TBS is on DIRECTV, and you can watch it free for DIRECTV's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
DirecTV Stream is as comprehensive as cord-cutting gets. Along with TBS, it has TNT, TruTV, RSNs, and dozens of other channels. It comes with unlimited DVR, too, so you can record games as much as you want. At nearly $90/month, however, you have to be extra sure before you subscribe to the streamer. You can look at their skinny bundles (called “genre packs”) or the other services listed here for cheaper alternatives.
The price jumps sharply between tiers, and a regional sports fee of up to about $20 a month gets added on top.
DIRECTV plans
Yes, with a free trial. TBS 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.
YouTube TV has a nice enough mix of sports and entertainment channels to complement TBS. It has TruTV, TNT, and CNN. RSNs are quite limited, but it does have ESPN, CBS Sports, and ACC Network. What makes YouTube TV a great option is that it’s easy to grasp for anyone who’s used YouTube in their lifetime, and it has unlimited DVR.
At $82.99 it's one of the most expensive ways to get TBS, and add-ons push the bill past $100 fast.
YouTube TV plans
No, not free. Sling TV carries TBS but has no free trial, so you pay from day one — at $45.99/mo it's the second-cheapest way to watch TBS on this list.
Sling Blue may be missing Orange’s Disney and ESPN channels, but it does provide local channels in some markets, which is where you’ll find a lot of sporting events. It also has TNT and TruTV to round out the Turner Sports coverage, as well as the NFL Network and NBCSN. A potential issue? You can’t opt out of the $5 broadcast fee if you do get local channels where you live.
No ESPN on the Blue lineup, and local channels only come in a handful of markets.
Sling TV plans
No. Fubo doesn't carry TBS.
No. Philo doesn't carry TBS.
No. Paramount+ doesn't carry TBS.
No. Peacock doesn't carry TBS.
No. Frndly TV doesn't carry TBS.
No. Disney+ only streams the Disney family (ABC, FX, Nat Geo, ESPN and the Disney kids channels), and TBS isn’t part of it. The best way to watch TBS without cable is YouTube TV above (free-trial).
Yes, the library plus some live sports. TBS comedies and its catalog stream on demand inside HBO Max, and the B/R Sports add-on carries some of the live games TBS airs (MLB postseason, March Madness). The 24/7 TBS channel itself isn’t 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 TBS, so Prime can’t stream it on demand or live. The best way to watch TBS without cable is YouTube TV above (free-trial).
The honest way to watch TBS 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 TBS, odds are you want TNT too. It's a sister channel, so every service above that carries TBS carries TNT as well, and the same free trials get you both. See our full guide to watching TNT 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 |
TBS 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 TBS 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 TBS with: Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV
Get Surfshark →Whichever you pick, connect to a US city first, then sign in to TBS or the service that carries it as normal. Choose a VPN with a money-back window so you can confirm it un-blocks TBS before you commit.
No. TBS 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 TBS 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 TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
On Amazon Fire TV, you can watch TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
On Apple TV, you can watch TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
On Android TV & Google TV, you can watch TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
On Chromecast, you can watch TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
On Samsung & LG smart TVs, you can watch TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
On phones & tablets, you can watch TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
On game consoles, you can watch TBS 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 TBS in the live guide.
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops TBS 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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