How to get on The Roku Channel: send Roku's content team an avails template listing titles you hold the rights to, or apply through one of Roku's Preferred Aggregators if your library is small. Roku decides what it carries.
The Roku Channel vs a Roku app: two different routes
There are two ways to put video in front of Roku viewers, and they lead to different places.
The Roku Channel is Roku's own free streaming service. It has live channels, on-demand movies and shows, and Roku Originals. Getting on it is a content deal: Roku licenses your titles or your linear feed, places them inside its service, and sells the ads. Roku's developer site lists distributing content on The Roku Channel as a separate path for media companies.
A Roku app is your own app in the Roku Channel Store, the route covered in our guide on how to start a Roku channel. You build it, pass Roku's certification checks and choose a monetization model in the developer dashboard. Ad-supported apps must publish an app-ads.txt file, according to Roku's app publishing guide. One app vendor suggests planning about three weeks for store approval. Viewers have to find and install your app themselves.
A FAST channel (free ad-supported streaming TV) runs a linear schedule; our explainer on what FAST TV is covers the model. Both routes can carry one, but only the first puts it inside The Roku Channel's live guide.
An app in the Roku store is not carriage on The Roku Channel. Vidiyo, for example, has a Roku app in the Channel Store, and channels made on Vidiyo play inside that app. They do not appear in The Roku Channel.
What The Roku Channel is and who watches it
The Roku Channel offers 500+ live channels plus free movies and TV shows, according to Roku's support page on getting the service. It runs on Roku devices, the web and mobile in the US, Canada and the UK, and only on Roku devices in Mexico. It can also be installed on compatible Samsung TVs and Amazon Fire TV devices.
The reach behind it is large. In Q1 2026, Roku began reporting ad revenue as its own line: $612.7 million, up 27% year over year, as Deadline reported on Roku's Q1 2026 results.
Ownership is changing too. Deadline also reported in October 2026 that Fox shareholders approved Fox's $22 billion acquisition of Roku. Watch for changes to programming and partner terms once the deal closes.
Who The Roku Channel carries
Roku says the channels in its lineup come from TV programmers, digital creators and well-known properties.
Local news has a real place on the platform. Roku promotes more than 100 free local channels and eight NBC local news stations inside The Roku Channel.
For a pitching operator, this means general entertainment, news and unscripted formats match how Roku's viewers already spend their time. A niche channel can still get in. Its pitch is stronger when it shows a library deep enough to fill a schedule and evidence that people watch it.
How to submit content to The Roku Channel
This process comes from Roku's Video on Demand developer page, checked October 19, 2026. Roku changes partner processes, so confirm the details on that page before you send anything.
Confirm you own or control the rights to every title you plan to submit, for the territories and formats Roku would use.
Download the avails templates from Roku's Title Avails Specifications. Series and feature films go on separate templates.
If you control the rights to only a small number of titles, Roku asks you to consider one of its Preferred Aggregators instead of submitting directly.
If Roku accepts your content, create a Roku customer account, enroll it in the Roku Developer Program, and enroll in the Roku Partner Payouts Program. Payouts flow only through that program.
Roku does not publish a response time or acceptance rate for direct submissions. Plan around the decision being Roku's, on Roku's schedule.
What Roku asks for: delivery, captions and analytics
Roku's developer pages set technical and business requirements, summarized below.
Requirement
What Roku says
Where it's specified
Rights
You must own or control the necessary rights to the titles you submit
Video on Demand page
Metadata
Avails templates, with series and movies on separate templates
Title Avails Specifications
Delivery
Either Roku-hosted ingest or a partner-hosted feed, each with its own spec
Ingest specs and live feed specs
Captions
Closed captions and audio descriptions where required by law, synced to audio for on-demand content
Roku certification criteria 4.8
Payment
Enrollment in the Partner Payouts Program
Video on Demand page
Analytics
Web-based performance data per title in the Content Partner Portal
Content Partner Portal docs
The captions rule comes from Roku's certification criteria, which require apps to follow the viewer's caption settings and to synchronize captions with audio on on-demand content. Plan for captions on every title from the start. Retrofitting them across a large library is slow.
How Roku splits ad revenue with partners
Roku's Distribution Agreement sets the money terms. Roku represents 100% of the ad inventory in content it carries, and the split works in two stages.
First, Roku works out net advertising revenue. It starts from gross ad revenue and deducts a 15% fee. The fee is 20% for ad-supported content outside the US when the partner was invited and started on or after August 28, 2026. Roku also deducts the distribution fees charged by third-party platforms and sites that deliver its services.
Second, Roku pays the partner 55% of that net figure on linear content and 50% on on-demand. The Roku Distribution Agreement adds that, at Roku's invitation and discretion, a partner may represent ad opportunities in that content, subject to Exhibit D (Partner Sold Inventory Program Terms).
Self-run platforms split differently. Vidiyo is our product, so weigh this accordingly. Vidiyo pays creators 60% to 90% of ad revenue by tier, with no setup fee or monthly bill. The two are not like for like. The Roku Channel brings an existing audience of tens of millions of households, while a self-run channel has to build its own viewers.
What to run while you wait for a Roku decision
Roku chooses what goes on The Roku Channel. The most useful thing you can do while you wait is put your channel on air somewhere you control and collect proof that people watch it. A programming team takes a channel with watch-time history, schedule discipline and a captioned library more seriously than a list of titles.
There are several ways to do this. You can build and certify your own Roku app, work with a playout vendor, or launch on a FAST channel platform that handles the apps for you. Our guide to multi-platform FAST distribution compares Roku with Samsung, LG, Fire TV and Pluto TV.
Vidiyo is one free option. You upload files, import from YouTube or connect an MRSS feed, then schedule a 24/7 channel on a weekly grid, and auto-fill covers the gaps. Captions are generated for every upload, and channels play in any browser and in Vidiyo's apps for Roku, Apple TV, iPhone and Android. There is no application to start, and you own your content and audience data and can export both. Those exports are the watch-time record you would bring to a pitch.
To be plain about it, a Vidiyo channel is not carriage on The Roku Channel. Running one does not submit your titles to Roku or improve your odds by any arrangement with Roku. It gives you a live channel, real viewers and your own numbers while Roku's team makes its call.
Vidiyo
