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When we arrived in America nearly 10 years ago I was struck by how very different American television viewing was compared to Britain. And I am sure in the 10 years since I left home viewing in Britain has changed dramatically, so my comparisons may be a little outdated, but bear with me. 

For starters, most American viewing seems to center around watching sports. There are tons of channels devoted to different sports, sports that don’t even get recognition in the UK. Ironically you can even watch English football (soccer) on a Saturday, which is something we definitely couldn’t do for free when I left the UK! The thing I really struggled with, was not being able to flop down in front of the television at 7:30pm and watch something that was reassuring and calming and familiar like for instance EastEnders. There are of course soap opera offerings here, but none that I had grown up with, and none that aren’t at least a little glamorous. Even today many cultural references escape me, I don’t understand who the people are that are being referenced. I still struggle when people quote Seinfeld episodes at me, a friend has repeatedly suggested I do try and watch them, and I have tried, but I really struggle with understanding and enjoying the episodes. 

The other problem I faced was kind of two fold, The Former Mr Right travelled extensively with work with no fixed schedule, so it was difficult to commit to following a show together as we had been used to previously and his hearing was so shocking that the volume he could hear the show at hurt my ears, so watching a show together stopped being a thing we could enjoy in an evening after the girls were in bed. From here on we streamed shows separately and rarely watched anything together, preferring to sit on the settee next to each other but alone, him with headphones on and me frustratedly watching the television beside him.

We had arrived in America in the middle of winter, so it wasn’t long before friends were beginning to comment on Facebook about the best BBC winter dramas on offer; it made me feel a long long way from home. After lots of research, I realized that there was a solution. I’m no techie, so this may be obvious to many of you, but with the installation of a VPN I was able to trick my iphone or iPad into thinking it was sat on the settee back in Blighty. And with a cable and adapter I could play that show up onto my television screen. And I was in heaven! 

I really think the BBC and ITV miss a trick here, I’m sure many ex-pats would pay, the equivalent of a licensing fee to just buy the iPlayer apps and have them work consistently abroad. It’s frustrating to get bounced out of your VPN connection, and equally when many people are watching and buffering happens; the Olympics in 2012 was really tough to watch.

I did a little research and talked to some ex-pats who had been here a little longer; there are lots of VPN options, some are free even, but it seems you get what you pay for! I went for a low-cost option and still today pay $5 a month, via paypal to My Expat Network. I have always been really impressed with them. Whenever I have had an issue their customer service has been hugely responsive and helpful and totally caters to me not being a techie. In fact of all the companies I have interacted with since arriving Stateside I think My Expat Network’s customer service is consistently the best I have experienced. And even better, when I come back to the UK I can change my viewing to trick my phone into thinking I am still in America and can watch US shows. We don’t pay for television anymore though and only stream services; although Netflix and other streaming services sometimes seem to be able to detect use of a ‘proxy device’ My Expat Network website describes how to use the VPN in combination with streaming services... who even knew that Netflix has a whole different menu of shows in the UK compared to the US?!

For $5 a month I absolutely love everything about My Expat Network!

Tell me, what are your favorite UK shows; those ones you can’t bear to miss?

If you would like a piece of home on your television in your own front room, with the company I use you can follow this link… full disclosure, this is an affiliate link and I get a small commission if you were to follow it and sign up. However, I absolutely stand by every comment I have made above about My Expat Network, ironically this blog post was written before I was even aware of their affiliate link program,

Be kind, be gentle…

Denise xoxo