How Do Roku Channels Get Discovered After You Launch on an OTT Platform?

How Roku Channels Work

The Streaming Store is where people browse, search, and add apps. They open this from the home screen, and if they are in the United States, they can also open the same catalog in a browser at channelstore.roku.com. Getting approved and put into the list allows someone who is already looking to land on your listing, but it does not put your app on every home screen.

As you look through that store, you will see shelves for genres, Most Watched, and Top Free. You will also see your new app placed in the New grouping for 30 days, which is the only window in which newness itself is a category. Someone browsing new arrivals can find you without already knowing your name, but after that window closes, you'll need to be in other shelves according to what people are looking for.

On their device, your page shows someone your description, screenshots of your interface, star ratings, your price, and your name as the developer, along with an Add channel button that installs the app on the home screen. If you charge for the app, the viewer may be asked for a billing password before the install finishes.

Finding You in Search

If someone already knows your name or the subject you cover, they can skip the shelves, of course, and search for you directly. You'll want to label your work clearly and be sure the name you have in Roku precisely matches any advertising you do. Then, match your name and description to what you offer that people are likely to search for. Make sure your description states your subject in plain language.

Finding one of your movies or episodes is a bit different. If you want your videos to appear in Roku Search, submit the address of a search feed, a JSON file with a unique identifier, and the descriptive record for each video. You have to follow the published schema and pass validation before those records enter the master database that Roku Search will use. Once your feed is in the database, a search on the remote, in the mobile app, or by voice can return your matching titles.

Your Job

Bear in mind that the records that feed all this are yours to keep accurate. Whether or not you appear in the interface, and how easy it is to find you, is almost always a matter of metadata. You are asked to include at least two relevant tags from the provided list on every episode, movie, and series, and bear in mind that mismatched tags reduce your performance.

If you keep the page, the feed, and the tags current after approval, search and the store shelves have accurate material to show. At Lightcast.com, we keep that catalog work current as well as help you build and submit your app. Book a demo with us at Lightcast.com to walk through it all and see what we can offer.