Forum Discussion

LilNasty's avatar
LilNasty
Reel Rookie
2 years ago
Solved

How to watch local channels?

How do I set up local channels? I have my antenna connected to my ROKU TV.

When I go to LIVE TV I see all the channels from across the country. Not my local broadcast channels. 

I went to the ROKU Community and saw some directions to do this:

Settings > TV Inputs > Live TV > Manage Channels > Hide streaming channels

...but after following these directions when I go back to LIVE TV I still get all the channels from across the country. I had to rescan the channels to get just my LOCAL broadcast channels.

When I go to LIVE TV I (again) lose my LOCAL channels and still only get all the channels from across the country. Also, I do not have a TV Guide of all my channels that are local for me. 

I had to follow the directions from the ROKU Community, then rescan my LOCAL Channels...but still loose them (again) when I go to LIVE TV. 

How do I get my list of LOCAL Channels to stay on LIVE TV...with a TV GUIDE of what to view. 

content
  • AvsGunnar's avatar
    AvsGunnar
    2 years ago

    LilNasty 

    Go to Settings/TV Inputs.  Look under the "Unused Inputs" for "live tv".  This is the antenna/local/OTA input.

    After you enable this input, go to Settings/TV Inputs  and highlight the Live TV.  Then select Rename and change LiveTV to Antenna.

    Then go to your Home Screen and look for the "Antenna" tile on your Home Screen.  You will need to select this Antenna tile in order to watch your locals. 

    If you select "Live TV" from the left hand side menu, you are actually selecting the Roku Streaming Channels.  You need to select the Antenna tile instead.  Roku made watching local channel unnecessarily confusing by labeling everything Live TV.  This is why I just find it easier to suggest renaming the OTA input to Antenna to keep things straight.

  • atc98092's avatar
    atc98092
    2 years ago

    There should be a setting under Settings/Home screen that will put the Antenna TV icon on the home screen. It might get loaded at the bottom of the list, so you'd have to move it up so it can be seen without scrolling. I'm going from memory, as I haven't had a Roku TV in a number of years. Hopefully they didn't remove that from the settings. 

  • HDMIGuy's avatar
    HDMIGuy
    2 years ago

    dal28dal  On your Roku TV go to settings, system, power, and select Antenna TV as your power on channel.

  • Rags7764's avatar
    Rags7764
    2 years ago

    After I scanned for and found my local antenna channels, I made them all my favorite by checking boxes. When I go to live TV guide, I go to favorite, there they are. If there is another or better way, please let me know. Eric 

     

68 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion
  • AvsGunnar's avatar
    AvsGunnar
    Community Streaming Expert
    2 years ago

    LilNasty 

    Go to Settings/TV Inputs.  Look under the "Unused Inputs" for "live tv".  This is the antenna/local/OTA input.

    After you enable this input, go to Settings/TV Inputs  and highlight the Live TV.  Then select Rename and change LiveTV to Antenna.

    Then go to your Home Screen and look for the "Antenna" tile on your Home Screen.  You will need to select this Antenna tile in order to watch your locals. 

    If you select "Live TV" from the left hand side menu, you are actually selecting the Roku Streaming Channels.  You need to select the Antenna tile instead.  Roku made watching local channel unnecessarily confusing by labeling everything Live TV.  This is why I just find it easier to suggest renaming the OTA input to Antenna to keep things straight.

    • MiddleAmerica's avatar
      MiddleAmerica
      Newbie
      2 years ago

      This is exactly what I needed to watch my local channels including news and sports…Thank You

    • cminmd's avatar
      cminmd
      Channel Surfer
      2 years ago

      I did this after OTA channels keep going away in Live TV Guide.  It's better to have OTA channels under "Antenna TV" guide.

      • cminmd's avatar
        cminmd
        Channel Surfer
        2 years ago

        I think by local you mean OTA.   I have two different ROKU tvs ( TLC and Hisense) where the OTA channels disappeared from the Live TV Guide.  This is the solution I found (you don't need to reset the TV). Do Settings > TV inputs > Live TV > Rename .  Select Antenna TV.   After this you may have to scan for OTA channels again.  Under Antenna TV settings select Hide streaming channels (i.e. check box.)  Now on the Home screen you will have under Apps & Inpits "Antenna TV".  This will have a guide for all OTA channels.  Works on both TVs.

  • Co-tack's avatar
    Co-tack
    Newbie
    2 years ago

    Roku TV can't watch local channels live directly except pre- recorded news only.

    • daveobieone's avatar
      daveobieone
      Reel Rookie
      2 years ago

      I wish there was a solution for people who can't receive local channels via an OTA outside antenna!   I live in the mountains, and can't receive ANYTHING over the air at my location on any TV.  Everything is blocked by mountains. 

      • atc98092's avatar
        atc98092
        Community Streaming Expert
        2 years ago
        daveobieone wrote:

        I wish there was a solution for people who can't receive local channels via an OTA outside antenna!   I live in the mountains, and can't receive ANYTHING over the air at my location on any TV.  Everything is blocked by mountains. 

        There used to be, but they got shut down by the networks. It is silly, but most stations are prohibited from streaming their live broadcasts. Your only option is probably satellite, or one of the online streaming TV providers (Sling, YouTube TV, Fubo TV, etc.) But those will still likely not carry every single broadcaster in your area.

    • HDMIGuy's avatar
      HDMIGuy
      Roku Guru
      2 years ago

      Co-tack Look at the post above yours.  If local channels are available in your area you can watch them on a Roku TV just like you can on any other TV.  Just select the antenna input as indicated..

      • mlvn's avatar
        mlvn
        Newbie
        2 years ago

        The is no antenna selection just the live tv I am confused

         

    • atc98092's avatar
      atc98092
      Community Streaming Expert
      2 years ago
      Co-tack wrote:

      Roku TV can't watch local channels live directly except pre- recorded news only.

      That is not accurate. Any Roku TV that has an antenna connected to the F-Connector can receive any local station within reception range. The number of stations received will depend on 1) how many local stations there are and 2) the signal strength of the station you want to watch. Digital TV requires a minimum signal level for a watchable display. Anything below that minimum and you get nothing. Above that minimum you have a perfect picture. It's all or nothing with ATSC broadcasting.

  • LilNasty's avatar
    LilNasty
    Reel Rookie
    2 years ago

    Thank you all in the Community!!

    I now have my local channels!

  • tejanita's avatar
    tejanita
    Newbie
    2 years ago

    How do I get the numbers of the channels I'm watching with my new ROKU device in my kitchen TV? like I do in our living room with my ROKU TV, there we can see the numbers of our local channels and the numbers for example: Channel 2 for CBS, channel 6 for ABC, Channel 7 for NBC, and Channel 9 for Fox. But on the new Roku device for our kitchen TV once we installed the Roku unit to see the TV without the antenna there are NO numbers like on our ROKU front room TV. Why is that? Seems I can scroll thru all the channels and there are NO numbers so I can see the local channels. Need some HELP! on this otherwise I will have to Return the Roku device unit I purchased. I want to see my local channels like when I just had my TV hooked to a regular bunny ears Antenna? If I can get a response quickly, so I can fix this or walk me thru this it would be greatly appreciated. I you need my email or phone number so that we can fix this. Thank you

    • tejanita's avatar
      tejanita
      Newbie
      2 years ago

      How do I get the numbers on my TV with this new ROKU device, I cannot find any local channels or number as I scroll down to find them, can't see any of my local channels. Need some assistance with this, thank you. 

      • Rags7764's avatar
        Rags7764
        Binge Watcher
        2 years ago

        You might try scanning channels on the new device in kitchen. Sounds like you might not have. Sounds like it's getting it's info from your living room tv. I'm quite new at this so good luck to you anyhow. Eric

  • Cdcanestaro's avatar
    Cdcanestaro
    Newbie
    10 months ago

    you just described my dilemma with this TV. So frustrating! Between my father and I we have 3 TCL Roku TVs. All the same model. I’m please with everything except for the fact that it does retain over the air channels. We have to rescan channels almost every time we want to watch local channels through antenna. 

    once or twice it has retained them for a short period of time, but then loses them. From what I’ve read in the replies there has been no answer that makes sense to me. In my opinion this is not a user error but a system error

    • bgbevan's avatar
      bgbevan
      Channel Surfer
      10 months ago

      How to view Broadcast Antenna TV on a Roku TV

       

      Yes, it has been frustrating trying to set up the Roku(TCL) TVs to watch local broadcast channels.  Most of the articles on the Roku web site were incorrect.  Even the ones written by Roku technical people.  For the last couple of months the process seemed to work sometimes, and, not other times.  Or, you would turn off the power and when you turned it back on, all the local channel setup was gone.  I don't know if there's a glitch in the software or, the database for the setup is remotely accessed from Roku servers and get corrupted.

      The good news is the local TV channel setup seems to have stablized.  Over the last month or so all the setup is still there and works fine on my TCL 55S405 running version 14.1 of the Roku software.  If you want to check your own TV, from Home on the startup screen, down arrow to System, OK, then right > About >.  This will display the model number and software version.  You have obviously figured out how to scan for local antenna TV channels and how to select them as favorites.  I have included the setup process I use for others to review.  There are two "Live TV" selections.  Do not select "Live TV" from the vertical side menu.  Instead, from "Home", right arrow > over to the channel icons and then up/down arrows to "Live TV"(OK).

      Here's the process I used to setup the local broadcast(antenna) TV channels on a TCL TV with builtin Roku.  There should be a more straight forward way but, there's not.  I don't know if it works with an external Roku box.

      Do this setup once:

      Make sure you have some kind of antenna connected to the antenna input on the TV set.  A “rabbit ears” is OK for urban areas.  I was able to catch 115 channels in the Las Vegas area.

      Step 1:  Home, down arrow to “Settings”(OK), “TV inputs”(OK), “Live TV” > Manage channels(OK), > Hide Streaming Channels (check the box), left arrow <, “Scan for Channels” > “Start Finding Channels”(OK), “Scan”(for channels)  This process can take 5 minutes or more.  My scan in the Las Vegas area found 124 channels.

      Step 2:  (Back arrow to) < “Manage Channels”(OK) then (left arrow) <, You should see a list of all the channels and their sub-channels.  “Favorites”(OK), Select just the channels(and sub-channels) you want to be listed under the “Favorites” tab in the channel listing.

      Step 3:  Push “Home” button to return.

      Do this every time you want to watch local antenna channels

      Home, then(right arrow) > , up/down keys to “Live TV”(OK).   You should see all the local antenna TV channels scanned earlier.  Select “Favorites”(OK), to see the favorite channels you selected.  To return to the channel guide when watching a channel, use the UPPER, LEFT arrow key <.

      B. Bevan, version: 1-12-2025

    • bgbevan's avatar
      bgbevan
      Channel Surfer
      10 months ago

      As I said in my reply posting, I was able to get the local broadcast/antenna channels set up and stabilized so it works every time, using the procedure I posted.  I walked through this convoluted procedure several times to make sure it was correct for my Roku TV, a TCL 55S405.  It has been working in my Roku TV for at least a month now.  You might also want to check which version of the Roku software you have.  I also included a "how to" in the article I posted.