How to build your own FAST channel on YouTube

FAST stands for free ad-supported streaming television: a linear channel, programmed like a TV station, that people watch for free and that earns from advertising. Pluto TV, Tubi and Samsung TV Plus are made of them. The model is not reserved for broadcasters. Here is what one is made of, and how to build one on a channel you already own.

The four parts of a FAST channel

A playout server that sends video continuously and switches between files on the clock. A programme guide, the grid of what plays when. Interstitials, the filler that covers the gaps between shows so the channel never goes dark. Ad-supported distribution, somewhere people watch for free and the advertising pays.

Enterprise vendors sell the first three as a service to broadcasters for five and six figures a year, and the fourth is a negotiation with a platform. A creator has the fourth already: a monetised YouTube channel is ad-supported distribution. What was missing was the other three at a price that made sense.

How Beamd maps onto it

Beamd's engine is the playout server: it keeps a broadcast on air from its own servers and switches files at the boundary, inside one YouTube broadcast, so the video id and the chat never change. Programming is the guide: a week on a grid, each show a video or a playlist, switched on time. The filler is the interstitial: whatever you choose plays in every gap and pads the last minutes before a change so shows start on the clock. YouTube is the distribution.

That is the whole model, on a channel you own, from video you have. What Beamd does not do is carriage: it does not place the channel on Pluto, Samsung or Roku, and it does not insert ads itself. Those are different businesses with gatekeepers; YouTube does that part.

Building one

1. Start a Beamd account on the Pro or Business plan; the free 72 hour trial covers this.
2. Upload the library. Each file is prepared once for streaming, so a show starts instantly however long it is.
3. Add the YouTube destination with the Default stream key from Studio, or connect the account.
4. In Programming, make a channel and paint the week: drag shows onto the grid, one video or a playlist each, on the days they run. Copy a day across the week with the keyboard.
5. Set a filler in the channel settings: an ident reel, a short film, anything that can play in any gap.
6. Press Start. From then on the channel switches shows on the clock; edit the grid whenever you like and the change lands at the next file boundary, with no restart.

What makes it a channel rather than a loop

A loop is one playlist forever. A channel has a shape to its day: the morning show, the afternoon film, the late block, the same on Tuesday as on Monday, and viewers learn when to come back. The guide is the product. Beamd gives every programmed channel a public guide page you can share, so the audience can see what is on and when.

What it costs

Programming is on the Pro plan at $79 a month and the Business plan at $149. That is the industry's own model at a fraction of the industry's price, and the trial is free.

Stream 24/7 with your computer off

Other guides

Where to find your stream key, on every platform.