Are you looking to watch BBC iPlayer in India? In India, just like across the entire planet, it’s not possible to watch BBC iPlayer right away as it’s blocked.
There is a relatively simple way to watch BBC iPlayer in India, though, and we go over it in this BBC guide while also covering why exactly you can’t watch BBC iPlayer in India in 2020 in the first place.
BBC’s reason behind why the BBC in India is not a thing? That you are not paying a TV license.
But there’s a lot of workers out there in India that overall live in the UK, and what if you are just on a holiday? That just does not make sense then.
Then you are paying a TV license to use BBC iPlayer but still aren’t able to watch BBC iPlayer in India...
The real reason? BBC doesn’t have the rights to show a lot of its content outside of the UK.
That’s both due to the fact that a lot of content that BBC shows is not owned by BBC as BBC pays for rights to show it in the UK, and because BBC also sells rights to its content.
Let’s explain further.
The result? BBC iPlayer not working in India right now, and probably never, whether that’s in 2020 or past.
The solution? To make BBC iPlayer think that you are in the UK so that the BBC doesn’t block you.
To watch BBC iPlayer in India, you need to do 3 things:
As far as the first step goes, to change your location virtually, you need to get a VPN and connect to a UK server.
VPN services?
They allow you to be virtually in a different country, but a VPN as itself is not enough to unblock BBC iPlayer.
If you previously tried using a VPN and couldn’t get it to work with BBC, it’s as you didn’t connect to a BBC supported server.
Unfortunately, while a lot of services offer thousands of servers, which is great, as far as unblocking entertainment that number doesn’t matter as it’s quality that matters.
And this is where PrivateVPN comes in as a service that focuses on entertainment, focusing on fewer servers while making sure they are able to unblock entertainment services like BBC iPlayer.
Sign-up. Download the app. Connect with your details. Connect to a UK BBC server.
...And just like that, you will have fooled BBC iPlayer.
Lastly, you need to create a BBC account, select whether you have a TV license, and you are good to go.
Now let’s go through the app aspect of getting BBC iPlayer in India
If you wish, you can sign back to your old account after. When it comes to this, though, it’s important not to just switch the location of your current account as that would result in you losing everything.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick is your best shot as far as watching BBC iPlayer in India.
There are also the options to connect your laptop to a TV via an HDMI cable or to install a VPN on a router, which we do not recommend as most routers can’t handle.
As far as TVs go, something that’s super limiting is the lack of support for VPN services on devices like Apple TV, Chromecast, and yes, even Roku.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick doesn’t have that issue as it supports VPN services.
Of course, if you have a TV with Android TV, that will also work.
If you only bought a Fire TV, select for your location to be in the UK, and that will allow you to download the BBC app.
Already have one?
Watching BBC in India isn’t as hard as with platforms like Disney Plus or Hulu which we covered on our blog if you would like to try them out, too, so you shouldn’t have any problems with it, but if you do, make sure to reach out to our award-winning customer support, or otherwise to check out our blog for help.
Written by Michael Smolski.
Disclaimer: PrivateVPN supports VPN services such as BBC iPlayer. However, due to the nature of the BBC trying to prevent VPN services from working, it cannot guarantee that BBC iPlayer will work non-stop.