[tredman]

There are no UK catch-up apps working correctly on the mi box.

iPlayer via the Kodi add-on works well

Itv hub, native Android TV app extracted from Sony TV, used to work on my mi box and shields but now crashes on boot. There is an itv Kodi add-on which mostly works.

CH4 has never worked

As for 5, does anyone ever watch it

However, the mi box works well as a Chromecast target, so you can just do that.

As mentioned above by wrxtasy, personally I wouldn't bother side loading non-android tv apps as you'll need to use some god awful air remote to control them.

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Damn -I really was not expecting to discover this. I thought my needs were somewhat basic from an Android TV device.

The fact that it runs Android TV and yet doesn't have proper support for these free service apps makes it a very inadequate device at its price point. I'm glad that you replied in time and stopped me going ahead with the buy.
It would seem even shield will not serve my basic needs.

Maybe things will improve later on and Android TV might actually support basic TV services. Until than I will put up with my Roku2 for TV demand services and keep the PC file server doubled up as HTPC.

Could Amazon Fire TV fulfil my needs ?

As wrxtasy says it's up to the developers to add them (iPlayer is already on the shield), I do find it annoying that most are already on the Android TV platform with the Sony Android TV.

You can add them to the Android tv live channels app via the puppetmaster app, but personally I don't think it's the right place for catch-up (i use the live channels app for live tv only).

Personally the only one missing for me is 4OD, the others are available via Kodi.