You don't need a cable bill to keep watching truTV. Here's every way to stream it online, and how to do it for free.
Reviewed and updated August 2026 by our cord-cutting team · 8 options
truTV is home to shows like Impractical Jokers, 101 Places To Party Before You Die, and Fast Foodies, which means this is where you'll find the funniest reality and lifestyle series. Since it's owned by Warner Bros. media, it also occasionally airs sports programs like NHL on TNT and NCAA coverages from its partner channels.
truTV is available without cable on Sling TV Blue, DIRECTV, Hulu with Live TV, DirecTV MySports Skinny bundle, or Spectrum TV Stream.
The cheapest way to watch Trutv is Spectrum TV Stream for $45/month.
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. truTV 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.
The “Hulu + Live TV” plan mixes Hulu’s exclusive offering of Originals with around 90 TV channels (the channels available depend on where you live). If you already have Hulu, getting the Live TV addition is usually cheaper than subscribing to another Live TV service. And if when you want to cancel the Live TV plan, you can click “cancel” on Hulu which will give you the option to keep the On-Demand part while canceling the Live TV.
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. truTV is on DIRECTV, and you can watch it free for DIRECTV's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Named the “best all-around streaming service for cord-cutters” by Rolling Stone, DIRECTV tries to be all the good things about cable without any of the hassle. It has a big selection of channels, possibly the best stream quality in the market, and great DVR capability. For example, unlike with competitor Youtube TV, your DVR recordings on DirecTV will be the same quality as the live stream (often in 4K). The service also comes with a decent monthly price tag, and Netflix-style practicality that allows you to stream Live TV from anywhere by downloading the app. Within your home, you can stream on up to 20 devices (!), and from outside your home you can stream on up to three devices.
The price climbs steeply between tiers, and a regional sports fee gets added on top.
DIRECTV plans
No, not free. Sling TV carries truTV but has no free trial, so you pay from day one — at $45.99/mo it's the cheapest way to watch truTV on this list.
Sling Blue is a live-tv bundle from cord-cutting alternative Sling, which is owned by the telecom provider Dish. It has many of the top 20 most watched national TV channels in the U.S. It costs $45.99/month but for markets with local channels, the streamer charges a mandatory extra $4/month for broadcasting fees.
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 truTV.
No. Philo doesn't carry truTV.
No. Paramount+ doesn't carry truTV.
No. Peacock doesn't carry truTV.
No. Frndly TV doesn't carry truTV.
No. YouTube TV doesn't carry truTV.
No. Disney+ only streams the Disney family (ABC, FX, Nat Geo, ESPN and the Disney kids channels), and truTV isn’t part of it. The best way to watch truTV without cable is Hulu + Live TV above (free-trial).
Yes, but on demand only. HBO Max carries truTV’s shows on demand, since Warner Bros. Discovery owns both. You get the back catalog to stream any time — you just don’t get the live feed or its schedule.
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 truTV, so Prime can’t stream it on demand or live. The best way to watch truTV without cable is Hulu + Live TV above (free-trial).
The honest way to watch truTV 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 truTV, odds are you want Investigation Discovery too. It's a sister channel, so every service above that carries truTV 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 |
| Sling TV |
$45.99/mo | None | 3 | Get it |
truTV 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 truTV 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 truTV with: Hulu + Live TV
Get Surfshark →Whichever you pick, connect to a US city first, then sign in to truTV or the service that carries it as normal. Choose a VPN with a money-back window so you can confirm it un-blocks truTV before you commit.
No. truTV 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 truTV 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 truTV through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, and Sling TV. To set it up, add the channel from the Roku Channel Store, sign in, and open truTV in the live guide.
On Amazon Fire TV, you can watch truTV through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, and Sling TV. To set it up, download the app from the Amazon Appstore, sign in, and open truTV in the live guide.
On Apple TV, you can watch truTV through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, and Sling TV. To set it up, install the app from the App Store, sign in, and open truTV in the live guide.
On Android TV & Google TV, you can watch truTV through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, and Sling TV. To set it up, grab the app from the Google Play Store, sign in, and open truTV in the live guide.
On Chromecast, you can watch truTV through Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV. The gap: DIRECTV doesn'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 truTV in the live guide.
On Samsung & LG smart TVs, you can watch truTV through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, and Sling TV. To set it up, install the app from your TV's own store (Tizen or webOS), sign in, and open truTV in the live guide.
On phones & tablets, you can watch truTV through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, and Sling TV. To set it up, download the app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in, and open truTV in the live guide.
On game consoles, you can watch truTV through Hulu + Live 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 truTV in the live guide.
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops truTV 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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