Electronic Program Guide (EPG): What is EPG and How it Works for FAST and Linear TV Channels

Here is what What IS EPG AND HOW Does IT means in practice, why it matters for linear and FAST channels, and how to put it to work without rebuilding your stack from scratch.

Understanding What IS EPG AND HOW Does IT

What IS EPG AND HOW Does IT runs scheduled, always-on channels that feel like traditional TV over the internet. In streaming terms, linear and FAST channels sits at the center of how audiences discover, watch and pay for your content.

What happens under the hood

Channels can be monetized with FAST advertising and distributed to apps, smart TVs and aggregators alongside your on-demand catalog.

A schedule sequences on-demand assets, live feeds and ad breaks into a continuous channel with an electronic program guide. Cloud playout assembles the stream and inserts ads dynamically, so you run TV-style channels without a broadcast facility.

The business impact

• Distribute to apps, smart TVs and FAST aggregators
• Dynamic ad insertion into linear breaks
• Drag-and-drop scheduling with an electronic program guide

Practical considerations

• Repurpose your VOD library to fill linear airtime cost-effectively
• Mark ad breaks accurately for clean dynamic insertion
• Build deep schedules so channels never run empty

Building this on LinqTV

LinqTV Live provides redundant RTMP and SRT ingest, low-latency delivery, live DVR and automatic recording to on-demand, built for event-grade reliability.

Running these capabilities on one platform lowers total cost of ownership and removes the integration debt of stitching separate vendors together.

Questions teams ask

Can we keep our existing tools?

APIs, webhooks and prebuilt connectors integrate with common CMS, CRM and payment systems, so you extend your stack instead of replacing it.

Do I need broadcast hardware?

No. Cloud playout assembles and streams the channel, so you schedule and run linear TV entirely in software.

What is a FAST channel?

FAST stands for free ad-supported streaming TV: linear, always-on channels that viewers watch for free while you monetize with ads, increasingly distributed through smart-TV platforms.

Where to go from here

Ready to put linear and FAST channels to work? Explore LinqTV One for an end-to-end streaming platform, or talk to our team for a tailored walkthrough of how What IS EPG AND HOW Does IT fits your roadmap. The links below are a good place to start.