Where to Watch TV (Legally) Online

If you want to know the truth, I’m a Nice Girl on a budget. I don’t make nearly enough to feed my ever growing need for TV shows on DVD, but there are a few ways for all of us to cut down on costs and still get to watch many of the shows we watch each season. Below is a list, with some specific limitations, on how you can watch TV shows online.

Network sites (abc.com, nbc.com, cbs.com, fox.com, cwtv.com, tnt.tv, usanetwork.com)—most networks put their programming content online the day after a show airs so that you can find time to watch anything. A few (CBS, NBC among them) also offer older shows from their networks for watching.

While most of the big network websites are fairly straightforward, the CW site (cwtv.com) is harder to navigate and to even figure out which shows I could watch there wasn’t easy. Previously, I had heard difficult things about the ABC site (abc.com), however, when I tried to watch an episode of Dirty Sexy Money over the weekend, I found the site worked well.

While the network sites will cover shows currently on the air, and few from the Wayback machine, theWB.com can fill the void for some shows no longer on the air or older seasons of shows still airing (all produced by Warner Bros). Unlike a network site, this site can offer each season of a show long gone, but only one season at a time. If you’ve fallen for Veronica Mars, or maybe you want to, the shows seems to run a season in a month (currently you can watch season two in its entirety, but not season one or three).

Of the currently airing WB produced shows, Supernatural isn’t available through that site, and I had very little success finding it on cwtv.com. For those looking for Chuck, season one is available through theWB.com, while season two (or parts of it) are available at NBC.com.

Hulu (Hulu.com) – another savior for those with busy schedules. Unlike any other site, Hulu combines current and past shows, usually showing one full season at a time. One of the popular shows on the site, Heroes, currently is showing all of the last season through the end of August. After that, only five episodes at a time will be available at time, with a new episode added each week (leaving the oldest episode off.)

Hulu also works with some of the networks still airing older shows in syndication. Though, with varying results—despite Angel being shown each morning on TNT, only season one is available through Hulu, while theWB.com and tnt.tv each have a few other episodes.

iTunes and Amazon – the two biggest pay-to-watch services around offer current seasons for most major network programming are iTunes and Amazon. Episodes can be purchased for either $1.99 or $2.99, depending on the quality. Both services allow you to download the file to your computer to keep and rewatch however long you wish.

Both services also provide “season passes”, allowing you to buy an entire season of a program for a reduced price per episode. A given episode is available the next day (or later) after its proper airing on television. Season Passes aren’t provided for every season, so be sure to look at the main page for each show before clicking that “buy” button.

Of course, all of these work for me in the land of smog and dry heat, but will sadly not work for everyone outside of the US. If you’re a Nice Girl living abroad, share your tips for legal TV watching in the comments section.