Discover the logic behind building a TV channel with OKAST. By the way, do you know exactly what a FAST TV channel is? To illustrate the mechanisms involved in building your channel, we'll start with its broadcast, and end with its division into time slots.
Then, we invite you to follow the various steps involved in building your channel, starting with this help page => Configure your channel's programming parameters
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- FAST, definition
- General mechanisms
- Distribute your channel
- Daily programming
- Template construction
- Building time slots
- Monthly programming
FAST, definition
FAST stands for Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV. It's a linear, ad-supported video signal that you can access free of charge on connected TV sets, mobile applications or websites.
These channels focus on :
- A library of content that needs to be renewed less frequently than on TV
- Less advertising than traditional television
There are three types of FAST channels: those based on a single intellectual property (mono IP), those with a single genre (mono genre) and those with multiple genres.
The current trend among traditional broadcasters is to invest in FAST by offering channels that complement their existing digital offering.
To find out more, download our white paper on FAST in Europe here: https://okast.tv/fast4eu/
General mechanisms
Your FAST channel is a 24/7 video stream, composed from your catalog of content. You'll need to create an assembly logic to fill 24-hour days, which evolve over time, and spaces for advertising. This is programming.
This programming is organized around a succession of content blocks: your templates. A template is made up of some of your content and advertising for one or more days of the week.
For example, your template applies to weekend or weekdays.
These templates need to be set up with a time slot, a duration and, above all, the structure for linking content (in a loop, sequentially, etc.) and ads.
Finally, a monthly calendar allows you to validate (or modify if necessary) your programming and advertising objectives, so that all the hours of your day are well filled and correspond to your good programs.
Distribute your channel
In your OKAST back-office interface, the DISTRIBUTE tab lets you visually validate the final video stream of your channels (a. Technical stream preview) on your distribution networks (b. Distribute).
a. Technical feed preview.
The right-hand thumbnail (a.1) includes advertising, while the left-hand thumbnail (a.2) corresponds to the OKAST output stream without advertising.
b. Distribute.
The left-hand banner shows your various distribution networks.
c. Program guide preview or EPG (c.).
Details your content and advertising over a 6-hour time slot.
Daily programming
Continuing our logic of presenting the general mechanisms, the next step is to visualize the programming of your feed.
This tab (SCHEDULE => Scheduling) shows your current program schedule (with a real-time cue, (a.)).
You can choose to view the day and hourly detail of the content you're scheduling (b.).
On either side (c.) and (d.), are the daily objectives you've defined to fill your schedule (generally in 24h).
For example, your 24h of content may include 3h of advertising. On the left is the programming objective (c.) and on the right the advertising objective (d.).
An Edit Mode (e.) allows you to become your team's editor, modifying the schedule in real time and adding a program, for example.
All you have to do is select a program from the program inventory (f.) and place it in the grid. This inventory contains all the content formats of your FAST channel (including commercials).
Template construction
Your programming is not implemented content by content, but is made up of different templates. These are blocks of content (and/or advertising) during a time slot that must be assigned to one or more days of the week.
In this example, Template 1: TEMPLATEE IBC is associated with the days Saturday and Sunday.
Your objective is to associate time slots (consecutively or not) to fill a day. You need to create several templates that correspond to the logical patterns of your editorial line, in order to fill your grid and automate the flow of your channel.
There are three steps to building a template:
a. Choosing your content, which can be in the form of time slots (grouping several contents together) and/or your ads (a.)
b. The organization of this content in your daily schedule - the ‘Daily grid structure’ (b.)
c. Validation of your 24h airtime target. Daily completion (c.) and the days of the week corresponding to your template.
Building time slots
As previously mentioned, a template groups together several content and/or advertising items during a time slot. We'll now look at how to create and organize this time slot according to reading rules from the PREPARE => Time slots tab.
At the top of the page, you'll find the general parameters of these rules (a.), such as the duration of the time slot, a color code for finding it in your menus, its playback mode (loop or single playback), and so on.
Next, the ‘Timeslot structure’ module (b.) lets you add rules to your time slot to automate your channel.
One line = one content and/or pub = one rule with several parameters. In the example 2 lines, index 1 and index 2 = 2 rules.
The ‘Add timeslot rule’ mode (c.) lets you define the following content parameters:
- Random mode: which randomly selects the organization of content
- Sequential mode: which respects the broadcast order
- Media mode: which respects a specific time like a live broadcast
- Ad break mode: which lets you add ads
The ‘Sequential’ and ‘Random’ modes allow you to add so-called inertial ads, i.e. (in addition) between programs.
Monthly programming
Finally, the SCHEDULE => Calendar, tab lets you check and modify your programming by month. This step will enable you to automate your schedules with an overall view.
The calendar lets you :
- Validate that all your days are filled (a.)
- Validate your monthly programming and advertising objectives (b.)
This is also where you can check the scheduling of your templates (c.) for the different days of the week.
Once your templates have been automated, you can always check (or delete) the details of a daily schedule by clicking on the edit icon
for the desired day.
Once you've assimilated this example, you can build and automate your channels with this help page => Configure your channel's programming parameters.