Hi everyone i’m a new member to this forum , Im based in Cotes d’azur and have a TCL amazon fire tv . i’ve had itv bbc apps running fabulously though the FREELY app whilst using a VPN app called surfshark , recently the freely app has become hard to connect to (ten fifteen times to get it going )but we can connect eventually and the ITVX app works .however using the the change channel button the ITV channels are just black even though the program EPG content is showing and all other channels are fine it says software is up to date so i’m at a dead end .any ideas what could be the issue ? i’ve tried contacting Surfshark but we couldn’t resolve anything VPN end , thanks 
I don’t have the answer to your particular question but I do know there has been a massive purge on “illegal” sources to watch channels and events that you don’t have the right to watch wherever you are. I think it was instigated by the Premier football league who found they were losing billions because people could watch their matches on things like firestick for free.
This is an issue that has been reported on several sites. ITV doesn’t seem to work from the EPG, but the ITVX app does work. This, when using a VPN.
There is another thread discussing this and a possible solution using SmartDNS. You don’t say which VPN provider you use, but if you use NordVPN then a SmartDNS subscription comes with it. Other VPN providers may do the same. Here’s where the discussion starts.