First, a word about copyright. Unless they are offered for free by the copyright holders, downloading commercial movies, music or programs for free is not legal.
You can get TV free at lots of places on the Internet. First, check with the television networks themselves. The availability of a particular network will vary with the country that you are in.
Available in Canada
- A&E http://www.aetv.com/videos/display.jsp
- CBC http://www.cbc.ca/player
- CITY TV http://video.citytv.com/video/home/0/
- CTV http://watch.ctv.ca/
- Discovery http://dsc.discovery.com/videos
- Global TV http://www.globaltv.com/video/#video
- Knowledge http://knowledge.ca/watchnow
- PBS http://video.pbs.org
Available in USA only
- ABC, http://abc.go.com/watch?rfr=ovguide&cid=syndvid_ovguide&utm_source=searchcpc
- BBC America, http://www.bbcamerica.com/videos
- CBS, http://www.cbs.com/video
- CW http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video
- Disney http://disney.go.com/disneychannel
- Fox, http://www.fox.com
- NBC, http://www.nbc.com/video
- TV Land (classic TV episodes) http://www.tvland.com/full-episodes
- TVOne http://tvone.tv/video.html
- USA http://www.usanetwork.com/videos/All-full-episodes
- Warner Bros http://www.thewb.com
Some of the players may require signup or authentication from your cable TV provider.
Many individual shows have their own sites with streaming video, like South Park, The Daily Show, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon.
There are many video podcasts available. Miro Guide Podcast Directory
There are television shows and older movies available on various streaming media sites, examples
Sony Crackle http://www.crackle.com/
Veoh http://www.veoh.com/ (TV shows USA only, requires installation of software)
Hulu http://www.hulu.com/ (USA only)
Many shows, networks and movies are searchable at OVGuide http://www.ovguide.com/browse_sites?c=network+tv&ci=88
If you want to invest a few dollars a month for a subscription there are
Netflix https://signup.netflix.com/
Hulu Plus http://www.hulu.com/
Also if you subscribe to cablevision (or internet or cellular service from a carrier who also offers digital TV) you may be able to watch TV through their streaming site.
In Canada,
Rogers – http://www.rogers.com/web/content/Live-TV
Shaw – has no live streaming options at this point.