Apple TV's Universal Search Gains Support for Comedy Central, MTV and VH1

Apple last week added three new apps to the universal search function on the fourth-generation Apple TV, introducing support for Comedy Central, MTV, and VH1, three popular networks.

For those unfamiliar with universal search, it is a feature that lets users conduct Siri voice searches or text-based searches to find TV and movie content across a wide range of apps. At launch, universal search supported only a few apps, but Apple has been adding new apps on a regular basis.

comedy_central_apple_tv_search
With the addition of support for Comedy Central, MTV, and VH1, searching for shows available on those networks will now bring up options to watch content within the respective apps.

Apple maintains a dedicated support document that offers Apple TV owners a full list of content that can be found via Siri through universal search. Apple's universal search feature is largely limited to the United States. In most other countries, universal search only displays iTunes content, while Netflix is also supported in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
ipad pro 2024

New iPad Pro Reportedly Launching This Year

Tuesday January 21, 2025 6:40 am PST by
Apple plans to release at least one new iPad Pro model this year, according to a supplier-focused report today from Korean website The Elec. It is likely that the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models would be updated simultaneously. After receiving an OLED display last year, the report said the iPad Pro will receive only "minor" changes this year. Overall, the next iPad Pro is expected to...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...

Top Rated Comments

blizaine Avatar
111 months ago
Yet no universal search support for my own library yet?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KazKam Avatar
111 months ago
Explain how that will work when Siri only searches the web and the device it is on? Siri does not log into devices on your network and search for files.
You keep saying this every time someone asks for Siri on the ATV to search their Home Share, and you're sort of right... but not. As you say, Siri can index and search the "device it's on". The ATV has all the metadata from your Home Shared library cached ON THE ATV, so it CAN search and index your Home Share.

Many of us have hundreds, if not thousands of movies available locally in iTunes. We can't search them with Siri; the interface to browse through them is unwieldy, buggy, and slow; and we don't want results from the iTunes store so that we can buy or stream something we already own. I don't want to try to stream a 5GB movie that's sitting on my HD downstairs, that's asinine.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Gasu E. Avatar
111 months ago

Whenever this subject comes up it mostly has to do with people wanting Apple to support illegally sourced content they have loaded on their iTunes library. YES ripping movies off DVDs you own is still illegal.
.
I think people would be perfectly fine if Siri took their legally purchased DVDs, loaded them into the DVD player, and pushed "Play." But since Apple has not given Siri a robot arm yet, people who rip their DVDs are trying to help poor Siri out a bit. Are you so unfeeling as to criticize people who want to assist this poor disabled application?

I'm a big fan of Siri on ATV. But your critique is absurd.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mainstreetmark Avatar
111 months ago
Yet no universal search support for my own library yet?
Why do you need it! All you have to do is go to your list of movies. Then, begin swiping down over and over and over. Don't worry, though, because if one of the swipes is slightly left or right, you can just start all over.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Glassed Silver Avatar
111 months ago
You want to give Apple access to your local network and all your files?
I want Siri to run offline.
Why the **** does Siri need to connect to the internet just to set a timer for example?

Plenty of times when I sit there waiting for Siri to complete a request that shouldn't take the "power of the cloud" to understand, whatever that **** means, especially after they showed that my local devices are good enough to use AI on photos.
It's also not like Siri has such a VAST set of possibilities that are impossible to store on the 16GB entry models... *cough*

Glassed Silver:mac
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Glassed Silver Avatar
111 months ago
Explain how that will work when Siri only searches the web and the device it is on? Siri does not log into devices on your network and search for files.
There's the problem. Online-only Siri.

Glassed Silver:mac
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)