How to Add Your FAST Channel on Android TV?

You have created your FAST Channel, but what next? Read this blog to know how you can add your FAST Channel on Android TV!

FAST channels are the future of TV. And to conquer this ever-growing FAST ecosystem, just creating your own FAST channel is not enough. You should make your channel available on all major devices too! And this is where the correct distribution and placement of your channels play a huge role.

If you wish to attain maximum viewership, you must add your FAST channel on Android TV, Roku, Samsung Plus App, Apple TV+, and all other major FAST destinations. In this blog, we will guide you in adding your FAST channel to Android TV. So, without any further ado, let’s get straight to the point!

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Android TV lets you add channels to your Android TV App, and these channels can then be displayed on the home screen. There is a global search functionality too, using which the viewers can search for your content directly.

Here, it is important to note that you cannot directly influence the position of your channel on the home screen. The home screen UI will place any new channel at the end of the list. However, your viewers can reorder them as per their preference. And for the discoverability, they will have to use the search function.

The home screen UI of Android TV displays your channels. Whenever you add any channel to your app, the channel is discoverable within the app. So, the viewers need to search for your channel on the app, and then request to add it on the home screen.

As soon as the viewers request to add it to the home screen, your app will send the request to System, and System will ask the user to approve the addition of the new channel. The user can then approve the channel and place it on the home screen.

You can use this placement to propel your content directly to the home screen. You can display cards based on your latest programs on the channel.

Hence, adding channels to your app is necessary to add channels on the home screen. Within your app, you can create or add new channels, update the programs of the channels, manage the order of programs, and remove channels whenever you need.

There are certain prerequisites for adding channels to your app. Like, you need to use TVProvider APIs. Also, you need to add the following permission to your app’s manifest:

<uses-permission android:name=”com.android.providers.tv.permission.WRITE_EPG_DATA” />

Also, you need to include the support libraries that are mentioned here.

You can create one default channel for your app. This is a channel that automatically appears on the home screen. For all the other channels except this one, the user needs to approve the placement.

Here’s why FAST is emerging as the future of TV in 2024:

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