So I just discovered the built-in TV/movie watcher, but when I went to the USA's Free-TV section to just try to pull up ABC News, etc., it gave me an endlessly spinning wheel.

When I tried to browse for Pluto movies, it just kept looping this loading screen with the same, few-seconds-long music with the Pluto planet and ring-shaped text rotating around it. It also showed this even when I tried to watch BBC Home in the TV section...

The articles I found online like https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/how-to-watch-live-tv-on-the-linux-desktop-with-hypnotix/ and https://itsfoss.com/hypnotix-iptv-app/ just don't seem to address the issues I'm having, as if they don't exist at all. Does this app just no longer work or something?

I think the app has a hardcoded list of urls to get it's content from and as the distro packages an old version, over time the urls just stop working because the TV channels change the way they stream.

Oh, so the links aren't updated. Gotcha. I wonder where I can get more updated links...

The installed version I have (from the mint repos) is 4.6 which is 2 years old.

I think these instructions might work - https://github.com/linuxmint/hypnotix/issues/403

Those look like the same thing. My installed version, 5.6, is already up to date. I'm not sure that this is any different than what I've got... I tried to run the channels and they're exactly the same, it seems... but thanks for poking around for a possible solution. It just seems abandoned, I think.