How to Watch Animal Planet Live Without Cable

Thankfully, as with most cable television content today, there are alternate ways to enjoy the channels and shows you want without forking over mountains of cash to a cable TV provider. Here are a few of the cable-subscription free ways you can stream Animal Planet online in order of cost.

Watch Animal Planet Live with These Streaming Services

All of the following streaming services will let you watch animal planet live just as if you had cable. Each of these online streaming services will also carry some Animal Planet on-demand content.

Animal Planet on Philo

The best value when it comes to streaming Animal Planet live is Philo. The streaming service gives you over 60 channels, including Animal Planet for only $25/month. You can check out a free trial and see if the service will meet your needs. Philo also includes a cloud DVR for you to record shows to watch later. 

Sign Up For A Free Trial To Philo

Philo is supported on Apple iPhone and iPad (running iOS 9 or newer), Android phones and tablets (running 5.0 or newer), Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast.

Stream Animal Planet on Hulu Live TV

Previously Hulu was known for its vast on-demand streaming library. Recently, they have added a Hulu Live TV service for $69.99 a month that offers Live National Geographic Online Streaming. Hulu Live TV is one of the best live TV streaming services available. It includes the following features:

• The basic package comes with 50 hours of cloud DVR storage. (Upgrades available)
• Watch on 2 screens at once. (Upgrades available)
• Comes with 6 customizable profiles
• Includes entire Hulu streaming library

Check out Hulu’s free trial here.

Some of Animal Planet’s shows also are available on-demand on Hulu’s streaming service, including “River Monsters,” “Tanked,” “Treehouse Masters,” and “Insane Pools: Off the Deep End.” The streaming service starts at $6.99/month, and it’s $12.99/month for no commercials. Check out our full review of Hulu for more details.

Animal Planet on FuboTV

FuboTV is an excellent place to go for sports, but it offers many other general channels, including Animal Planet. Over 90 channels are offered in its basic package for $69.99 per month (after 7-day free trial). The FuboTV app is available on major platforms, including AppleTV, AndroidTV, Roku, and Amazon FireTV. You can sign up for a 1-week free trial or check out our review of FuboTV for more details.

Watch Animal Planet on Vidgo

Vidgo is a newer streaming service that offers fairly competitive pricing over other live streaming services. The only catch is they do not currently offer a DVR. Vidgo includes Animal Planet in its Core package, along with over 60 other channels. New customers can sign up for the Core Plan for $55 per month. (They offer discounted promo pricing for your first 3 months.)

Vidgo doesn’t force you into a contract so you can cancel any time. They do offer a 3-day free trial, which you can cancel within the first three days at no charge.

Vidgo is supported on available on Android, iOS, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Fire TV. You can also stream the service on up to 3 devices at the same time. We have the full details in our guide to Vidgo’s live streaming service.

Animal Planet on YouTubeTV

YouTubeTV also offers Animal Planet streaming live, as well as limitless storage space for recording your shows. Your library of recorded shows can be streamed anywhere. YouTubeTV costs $64.99 a month.

YouTubeTV is available on Roku, Android, iOS (includes AirPlay to Apple TV), and Chromecasts/Chromecast-compatible TVs. See our review of YouTube TV for more details.

DIRECTV STREAM Now

While Animal Planet is available through DIRECTV STREAM Now, it’s a part of their “Entertainment” plan, which is $64.99 per month for 1 year, then $102 per month going forward. We don’t see any real value outside the “Pro” package, and maybe the Max package if you are a sports fan. See our review of DIRECTV STREAM for more information on their service.

Animal Planet App On Roku, Firestick, and more

While all the streaming services mentioned above are supported on Roku and Amazon Fire TV Stick, you may want to watch some of the on-demand content available on the Animal Planet Go app. Not to worry, Animal Planet is available on several streaming devices. You can even use your login credentials for FuboTV, Philo, Hulu Live TV, Vidgo,  DIRECTV STREAM Now, and YouTube TV to unlock all the content on the app.

How To Watch on Your Device

For our example, let’s assume we have a Philo TV subscription and a Roku. We can follow the steps below to get the Animal Planet Go app working on our device. While the steps below use Philo and Roku to watch animal planet, most streaming services and devices will have the same process.

1. Go the channel store or app store on your device. On Roku, it’s called the “Channel Store.”
2. Search for Animal Planet Go
3. Add the for Animal Planet Go to your device and then open it. 
4. Your Roku device will then show you an activation code and a URL.
5. Using a computer or mobile web browser, you go to the URL.
6. You will then be asked for a TV provider and a username/password. I’m entering the username and password I use for Philo. I’ll supply a full list of TV everywhere apps and supported streaming TV providers in the next section.
7. Once you sign in on Animal Planet’s website, your TV screen will refresh. You should now have access to all the video content the app provides.

Supported Devices

The Animal Planet Go app supports the following devices.

1. iPhone 6 and newer
   • iOS 9 and newer
2. iPad 3rd Gen and newer
   • iOS 9 and newer
3. Android Mobile
   • Android 5 operating system and newer
4. Kindle Fire Tablet 7 and newer
   • Android 4.0.3 operating system and newer
5. Web Browsers
   • Safari 10 and newer
   • Chrome Blink 51 and newer
   • Firefox 
   • Edge
   • Android Webview 70.0.3 operating system and newer
6. Roku
   • Roku 3
   • Roku Ultra
   • Roku Express
   • Roku Stick
   • Roku Stick+
   • Roku TV
     • All operating system version are supported
7. Fire TV
   • Fire TV Cube 
   • Fire TV 
   • Fire TV Stick
   • Fire TV Edition television
     • Android 5 operating system and newer
8. Apple TV
   • Gen 4 and newer
     • tvOS 9 and newer
9. Android TV 
   • Available for HGTV GO, Food Network GO, Cooking Channel GO, DIY GO, and Travel Channel GO
   • Android 5 operating system and newer
10. Samsung Tizen
    • Tizen 2 (TV Model Year 2015) and newer
11. XBox One
    • All operating system versions are supported

Why We Love Animal Planet

Repeat after me: it’s not all a dumpster fire out there. There are puppies in the world. There are puppies!!

The puppies and kittens featured on Animal Planet’s show “Too Cute” are almost too cute to bear. They take all the hardened, festering stress gripping your heart and melt it down into liquid lollipops. At least for me, baby animals appeal to some primal human inside, appealing to an inherent instinct to nurture.

Thank goodness Animal Planet has provided us with this necessary distraction, with that and other animal-based shows acting as a sort of island of calm in the sea of channels otherwise showing discord and despair. You might also check out what’s up in the San Diego Zoo in “The Zoo” (whatever it is, I guarantee it’s better than anything on the news). Or maybe you’d like to know how cool aquariums can be in “Tanked”? 

Even shows like “River Monsters” and “My Cat From Hell” promise to show you an amusing romp compared to what you are used to nowadays. It’s not just all distractions, however. Steve Irwin of “The Crocodile Hunter” fame met have met a sad end, but his gung-ho style of exploration still inspires lovers of nature the world over via the channel. You can even see his wife and kids in “Crikey! It’s the Irwins”, still loving nature and teaching people about conservation.

Seeing all the fantastic animals out there and the people that care for them might help you realize there is good out there that’s worth protecting. After watching Animal Planet, you might be ready to take on the rest of the channels, too. Fortunately, you don’t need cable to do so.

For information on watching other TV channels online check out: How To Stream Specific TV Channels