How to watch the ‘Disney Family Singalong’ live on ABC without cable

Whether you consider the Disney musical canon to be low culture, high culture, or some otherworldly mix of the two, you probably have an emotional connection to at least one or two of the songs on tap tonight for The Disney Family Singalong.

The ABC special is basically a procession of very famous music artists singing Disney songs for the collective captive audience that is the United States of America right now. It’s an impressive lineup, to be sure: Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Alan Menken, Elle Fanning, Josh Groban, Darren Criss, and Tori Kelly are just a few of the participants, in addition to cast members from High School Musical and Aladdin on Broadway. And the good news is, you don’t actually have to sing along.

If you’re interested, ABC has the full lineup of songs here. High culture? Low culture? Oh, just let it go.

The Disney Family Singalong will air tonight (Thursday, April 16) at 8 p.m. ET. Cord cutters who want to stream the special live on a computer, phone, or smart TV have a handful of options. I’ve rounded up a few choices below:

Streaming services: A few popular streaming services let you stream ABC live or watch the content after it airs. Those include Hulu With Live TV, YouTube TV, and AT&T TV Now. These are paid services, but you can usually get a week free, and they’re easy to cancel.
Locast: This is a nonprofit service that lets people live-stream broadcast networks for free in select cities. Find it here.
ABC website and apps: If you have pay-TV login credentials, you can live-stream ABC on abc.go.com/watch-live or via its iOS and Android mobile apps.

Now, is this the best way to spend your time on lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic? I’ll leave that for you to decide. Just remember that ABC is a broadcast network, and you can watch it for free with an over-the-air antenna if you have one of those. Enjoy!