The invention discloses a searching method for channels, which comprises the steps of: when receiving a channel searching request of a television terminal, determining a target frequency point in a current broadcasting network; from the target frequency point, downloading a packaged BCT guide table, wherein channel information corresponding to all channels of code stream in the current broadcasting network is packaged in the BCT guide table; acquiring each piece of channel information in the BCT guide table; and parsing each piece of channel information, acquiring an original signal corresponding to each piece of channel information, and sending the original signal to the television terminal so as to complete searching on each channel. By the method, the BCT guide table is downloaded, and download of the channel information corresponding to all the channels in the code stream is completed only by carrying out downloading for one preset preferred frequency point, so that searching time is greatly shortened, and the problem of excessively long channel searching time in the prior art is solved.