What exactly is Roku’s Direct Publisher?

Roku Direct Publisher is an amazing way to create Roku channels and apps since 2016. Prior to Direct Publisher’s release, Roku extended its platform to developers writing apps in Brightscript as well as other various languages. This type of app was known as the Roku SDK or software development kit. For channel owners who did not code, this was not a very convenient solution and created a challenge to enter the streaming TV delivery market. Roku, as a result, released Direct Publisher allow Roku apps and streaming TV channels to be written without one line of code.

As we say “one line of code”, this is the claim that most streaming TV blogs will tell you. However, that is not entirely true. Direct Publisher requires the use of feeds. Feeds are plain text data files mostly know for containing data to be utilized by other applications. The most popular type of feed is the RSS feed, mostly created by blog platforms such as WordPress and utilized by podcasts to list out episode. RSS (really simply syndication) has been a mainstay data format for over 15 years now and is used by everyone from Google to mobile apps.

Direct publisher apps use one of two types of feeds: MRSS (Media RSS) and JSON (Javascript Object Notation), both which require some knowledge of computer programming. TV Channel Press produces the Direct Publisher JSON format which is produced by our custom WordPress programming. You do not need to know any programming. We handle it all behind the scenes. You simply take the feed address that we provide and feed it right into your Roku settings.