Watch News Online lets you watch free live TV news streams from US networks, international channels and local stations in one place. This guide explains every button on the remote: choosing channels, typing channel numbers, the SCAN button, the sleep timer, favorites and bookmarks, and what to do when a stream will not play.
Watch News Online is a free site for watching live TV news streams in one place: US national networks, international newsrooms, business and weather channels, and local US stations. There are no accounts, no sign-ups and no ads. The page works like a TV set with a remote: the screen is on the left and the remote control with its channel tiles is on the right (on a phone the remote sits underneath the screen).
Tap any tile on the remote. The station's live feed opens on the screen and its channel number shows next to the title as CH 12. The × button in the corner of the player, or the logo at the top of the page, closes the stream and returns you to the welcome screen.
Under every stream there is a Watch on Official Site link to the station's own page, and a small Report it link for when the feed is dead or wrong.
The row of tabs at the top of the remote filters the tiles:
The tab you are on also decides what the SCAN button and the channel up and down keys step through: they only ever cycle the tiles you can see.
Every channel has a fixed number, printed in the corner of its tile. On a computer, just type the digits, exactly like a TV remote. They collect on screen as you type (CH 1, CH 12, CH 123) and the channel tunes about a second after you stop typing. Press Enter to tune straight away or Esc to cancel.
You do not need to be on the right category tab. Typing a number works from anywhere, even for a channel that is not in the list you are looking at. If you type the number of a station that is not broadcasting right now, the screen tells you so and keeps watching for it; a notice appears offering to tune it when the station comes back on air.
watchnewsonline.net/#12.| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| 0 to 9 | Enter a channel number (up to four digits) |
| Enter | Tune the number you typed without waiting |
| Esc | Clear the number you were typing, or close an open menu |
| ↑ / ↓ | Channel up / channel down through the tiles on screen. Same as the CH ▲ CH ▼ buttons. |
| L or Backspace | Jump back to the previous channel. Same as ↶ LAST. Press it again to flip back, handy for following two stations. |
Shortcuts are ignored while you are typing in a text box, and while the sleep screen is up (a key press then just wakes the page).
▶▶ SCAN plays a few seconds of each channel in the current list, one after another, like the scan button on a car radio. Press it and choose how long to stay on each channel: 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 or 120 seconds. Your choice is remembered for next time.
☾ SLEEP turns the stream off after 15, 30, 60 or 90 minutes, or 2 hours. The button shows the time remaining. When the timer runs out the video stops and the page dims with a good night message; move the mouse, tap, scroll or press any key to wake it. Pick Off from the same menu to cancel.
The countdown survives a page reload, so if the browser refreshes the timer carries on. Setting a sleep timer also stops any scan that is running.
Every tile has a small star. Tap it to add the channel to ★ FAVS; tap again to remove it. Tapping the star never changes the channel you are watching.
The FAVS tab lists your starred channels with the ones on air first. A favorite that is off air is still shown, greyed out and marked Off air, so you always know what you saved. Favorites are stored in this browser only; they are not tied to an account and do not follow you to another device.
Yes. While a channel plays, the address bar shows its number after a hash, for example watchnewsonline.net/#12. Bookmark that, share it, or set it as your home page, and the channel starts as soon as the page opens. Channel numbers are permanent: they never get reshuffled when stations are added.
If the bookmarked station is off air when you open the link, you get a message instead of a blank player, and a notice appears when it goes live.
The dim strip under the video shows the current time in the places the news is coming from. On ALL, INTL and BIZ it lists world cities; on US, WX and LOCAL it lists the US time zones. Hover or tap it to make it brighter. A small +1 or −1 next to a clock means that city is already on tomorrow's date, or still on yesterday's, compared with you.
If the strip is wider than the player it scrolls sideways: drag it, swipe it, or hold Shift while using the mouse wheel.
The remote only lists channels that are actually broadcasting. Most local stations stream only during their newscasts, and even 24/7 networks restart their stream every so often. The site checks what is on air in the background and refreshes the tiles about once a minute, so:
A 24/7 network that goes dark is kept on the remote for a few hours in case its stream is simply restarting. If you open one and get a dead player, try again in a minute, or use the Report it link.
youtube.com for this site, or try another browser.Use Submit a Channel to suggest a station we do not carry. A YouTube channel link is the most helpful thing to include, because that is how the site tracks whether a station is live. Use Report a Problem for a dead stream, wrong video or wrong label. Both forms are read by a person; no account is needed.
Yes, it is free, and there are no ads, subscriptions or paywalls on the site. The streams are the stations' own public live feeds, played through YouTube's player, so a station may run its own ads inside its stream.
There are no accounts and no sign-ups. The only things stored are in your own browser: your favorites, your scan and sleep timer settings. The streams themselves are played by YouTube's own player, which is subject to Google's privacy policy. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.