A 24/7 stream is a live broadcast that never ends, fed by video you recorded earlier. Lofi channels, sleep music, sermon replays, cartoons, radio and podcast channels run this way. YouTube allows it, viewers find it through the live tab, and it keeps earning while you sleep. Here is how it works and what it takes.
YouTube has no time limit on a live broadcast. A stream can run for weeks on one broadcast, and the stream key you get from Studio (the one labelled Default stream key) can be reused for as long as you like. That is not true everywhere: Twitch ends a broadcast at 48 hours and Facebook at 8, so YouTube is where most 24/7 channels live.
The content rules are the same as for any video. Video you own, or have the rights to, is fine. A loop of somebody else's film is not, and a 24/7 stream is the most visible place to get caught.
A computer left on. OBS or a media player looping a playlist, streaming from your own machine. Free, and it works until the machine sleeps, updates, loses wifi or gets used for something else. Most first attempts end this way, usually at 3am.
A rented server you manage. A cloud machine running the same software. Reliable if you know how to keep a Linux box healthy, and it is on you when it is not.
A service that does it for you. You upload the video, paste the stream key, and a server you never see runs the broadcast. This is what Beamd is. The rest of this page describes that route, because it is the one that stays up.
A key belonging to a scheduled broadcast works once, for that broadcast, and YouTube accepts a connection on a dead key while showing nothing. If a stream worked yesterday and shows nothing today, use the Default stream key instead.
Connections drop. YouTube has brief outages, ingest servers restart, and a broadcast can end on YouTube's side. Beamd reconnects on its own, backs off when the platform is refusing, and tells you by email if a stream has been failing for a while rather than the moment it blips. Our own channels have run for weeks on one broadcast this way.
You can change the playlist while live. Add, remove or reorder videos and the change takes effect on the next loop without the broadcast stopping.
If you want shows at set times instead of one loop, Programming lets you paint a week on a grid and switches between them on the clock, with a filler that plays in any gap.
Beamd starts at $19 a month for one stream, three destinations and 50 GB of storage, which is enough for a single 24/7 channel. Programming is on the Pro and Business plans. There is no charge for the trial, and you can cancel from your account at any time.
Stream 24/7 with your computer off