With the ABC being host to the likes of Shark Thank and Grey’s Anatomy, it’s no wonder you want to know how to unblock ABC in the UK in 2020.
The goods news? It’s actually not hard to do so, even though ABC is currently not available in the UK.
Let’s walk through why the ABC is not in the UK right away, followed by how to set it up.
ABC, unlike a lot of networks, does own a lot of its content.
The main reason why most streaming platforms are not currently in the UK is that they pay for rights to show a lot of content, and those rights are exclusive to showing content in the country they are in.
When it comes to ABC, the situation is a little bit different.
See, a lot of companies buy rights from ABC to show content exclusively in their country.
That means that if the ABC were to go into the UK, it would not be able to show all of its content.
The result?
ABC just is just not available in the UK.
...But this isn’t the case with just ABC as most streaming platforms do not work in the UK including, even DAZN, which was born in the UK.
ABC at least doesn’t make it super hard to watch ABC in the UK.
There are two steps to watching ABC in the UK.
As far as getting the ABC app, we’ll discuss that at the end of this guide as the steps will differ depending on your device.
To trick ABC so that you can unblock it, you are going to need to virtually change your location to be in the US.
For that, you use a tool that you might have heard of before, a VPN.
If you are not aware of a VPN, what a VPN simply does is that it changes your location to be somewhere else, virtually, while also keeping you secure through the likes of encryption and IP address change.
Is it that simple?
Unfortunately, not quite.
While ABC doesn’t make your life hard as it doesn’t require a card issued in the right region to get you signed up like it is the case with DAZN, Hulu, and many other platforms we covered on our page, it’s still not as simple as just using any VPN to unblock ABC.
Free VPN services? They don’t unblock streaming services, are slow, and often sell your data, meaning they aren’t true VPN services.
Does that mean that a paid option right away solves the issue?
Not either.
Some of the most popular services out there invested a lot in marketing, and not enough on quality, and quality is crucial for unblocking content with VPN services.
And this is where PrivateVPN comes in as a service that doesn’t have thousands of servers like some of the competition, but that does instead offer quality servers that unblock entertainment services that you want to access.
As human’s we naturally prefer quantity, but you have to ask yourself, why are you getting a VPN?
Are you getting one for business purposes and need to connect to a specific city, or are you trying to access services that are blocked in the UK?
If for entertainment, quality is vital, and this is where PrivateVPN comes in a service that is able to unblock services like ABC while also being able to unblock the most Netflix regions on the market and many more.
Of course, you are reading this on our site, so we are naturally going to try to pitch our service, but you can try it out for 7-days, without having to provide a card, and then you can decide for yourselves as to whether our servers that are run on our own hardware are good enough for you.
And yes, the service work on up to 6-devices at once, if you know what we mean ;)
When you connect to the right server, you will now be able to watch ABC in the UK, except it’s not as simple when it comes to watching on a TV, and you might want to get the ABC app on your phone. We’ll walk through that now.
On Android devices, if you try to play something on CBS, you will be taken to the Play Store, where you will be shown an app that is not available in your country.
There are a few ways to go about it.
The simplest: On Google Chrome, press on the 3 dots on the top-right of the screen, followed by the Dekstop Site.
Want the app?
That will allow yo you to get the ABC app in the UK on Android devices.
Of course, if you would prefer not to go through this process, you can just search for “ABC.APK” on Google. Just make sure to download the app from trusted sources if you do take that approach.
On Apple devices, you can also do the Google Chrome approach of enabling Desktop Site, but for that, you will, of course, need to download the Chrome app.
Alternatively, to get the app...
On Apple devices, it’s absolutely crucial that you do not just change the region of your current account and that you create a new account instead. If you were to change the region of your current account, you would lose everything.
Shows are watched best on a big screen.
This is where issues often start emerging with streaming services...
Platforms like Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, gaming consoles, and most smart TVs do not support VPN services, meaning that even if you can get the ABC app on them, you can’t watch ABC.
There are some ways to go around this issue, though...
The Amazon Fire TV Stick is probably your best option due to how open the platform is.
If you plan to buy one, simply select for your location to be in the US.
Already have one?
Here’s what to do:
The great thing about unblocking ABC in the UK with this method is that this method also allows you to unblock many other American services blocked in the US.
Want to unblock more complex services like RTE Player, DAZN, or Hulu? We have plenty of guides about those on our blog.
Written by Michael Smolski.
Disclaimer: While PrivateVPN does work with ABC, just like any other VPN service, it cannot guarantee that ABC will work non-stop at all given times. That’s due to the nature of services like ABC having to take action against VPN services.