LIVEPLUSTV
Get started
NEWS CHANNELS

A news channel, newsroom-sized.

The day’s bulletin on a loop, refreshed as stories develop. A ticker that never sleeps, cut-to-live the moment something breaks, reporters filing over SRT, and callers on the morning phone-in. Run by a small team, from a browser.

Step by step

How to start a news channel

Rolling news looks like the most expensive format in television. Built as a cycle instead of a marathon, it is one of the leanest.

  1. Build the bulletin cycle

    The day’s bulletin is recorded once and loops; when a story moves, the refreshed bulletin replaces it in the schedule and airs on the next cycle. The channel stays current without being live every minute.

  2. Keep the ticker alive

    Headlines run across the channel continuously, updated from the browser between bulletins. The ticker is what makes a loop feel like rolling news.

  3. Cut to live when it breaks

    Studio camera or field SRT feed, taken the moment the story demands it, with lower thirds fired live. The schedule resumes when coverage ends.

  4. Sell the market you can prove

    The city-level map shows which markets tune in at which hours, and delivery-confirmed counts turn local-business sponsorship into a rate card rather than a favor.

The format

What runs on a news channel.

Bulletins are the spine, the ticker is the pulse, and live is the reason viewers keep it on.

Bulletins

The loop that stays current

Record the bulletin, loop it, replace it as the day moves. Viewers get news whenever they tune in, and the newsroom works in cycles instead of around the clock.

Breaking

Live the moment it matters

No lock times, no render queue, no vendor to call. The channel cuts to the studio or the field feed instantly, and returns to the grid when the story is told.

The field

A reporter is a phone and SRT

Contribution over SRT survives the connections reporters actually file on, listener mode reaches through venue firewalls, and a dropped feed falls back to the schedule, never to black.

The desk

Ticker, thirds and the phone-in

The headline ticker runs on every plan, lower thirds fire live from the control room, and the call-in line, arriving shortly, on FAST and up puts the audience itself on air, the cheapest hour of programming in news.

The details

What it takes, in practice

Starting a news channel takes a small newsroom, a bulletin cycle, and an encoder in the studio. Playout, the ticker, graphics, the programme guide and worldwide delivery run in the cloud on the Cloud Playout plans, from $254 per month, with most news operations on FAST for the extra live inputs and the call-in line. It is the news shape of a FAST or linear channel.

The regional gap is the opportunity

National networks cover the nation; the city, the district and the diaspora community are covered by nobody, and they know it. A channel that reports the local council, the community’s businesses, the weekend’s events and the stories the big desks skip owns an audience the national channels structurally cannot serve, and local advertisers, who have nowhere else that reaches exactly their customers, follow it. The city-level analytics prove the audience that was always assumed.

Edit-live is the whole difference

Legacy playout treats the schedule as a contract: content deadlines, lock times, change requests. News cannot live that way, which is why this engine has no deadlines at all. The refreshed bulletin replaces the old one and airs on the next cycle, the running order changes twenty minutes before air because the story did, and cutting to live is a button, not a booking. The channel moves at the speed of the desk.

Multi-language newsrooms welcome

The ticker and lower thirds carry multi-script and right-to-left text, so the Urdu bulletin, the Arabic headline strip and the English interview live on one channel, and AI subtitles on higher plans let one newsroom serve readers across its languages. The diaspora guides cover those audiences in depth.

EVERY CHANNEL INCLUDES
Questions

News channels, answered.

How much does it cost to start a news channel?

Plans start at $254 per month billed yearly, per channel, with unlimited viewers and delivery included; most news operations choose FAST at $679 for the extra live inputs, with the call-in line arriving shortly. There is no contract and the first purchase has a 7-day money-back guarantee. The newsroom is the real cost; the broadcast infrastructure stops being one.

Can a small team really run a 24/7 news channel?

Yes, because rolling news is a format designed for it. The day’s bulletin runs on a loop and is replaced as stories develop, the ticker carries headlines continuously between refreshes, and the schedule fills the rest with talk, interviews and archive programming. One editor and one presenter can keep a credible channel current; many do.

How does breaking news work on a scheduled channel?

You cut to live, and the schedule waits. A live input from the studio or the field takes the channel the moment you take it, there are no lock times and no deadlines on schedule changes, and when coverage ends the grid resumes where it should. The channel behaves like a newsroom, not a cinema.

What does field reporting need?

A phone or a small encoder sending SRT, which was built for exactly the links reporters actually have: shared venue wifi, cellular, the press-room ethernet. Listener mode lets the channel reach out through awkward firewalls, and if the field feed drops, the channel falls back to the studio or the schedule instead of to black.

How does the ticker work?

The headline ticker is burned into the broadcast on every plan and updated from the browser control room, so the channel carries the latest lines even while a recorded bulletin airs. Lower thirds for names and locations trigger live, and multi-script text means the ticker reads correctly in Urdu, Arabic, Hindi and more.

Can viewers and guests get on air?

Guests join today from a browser link, and the viewer phone-in line is arriving shortly. Phone-ins are the cheapest programming a news channel has. Guests join from a browser link with two live inputs on FAST and four on Studio, and the viewer call-in line on FAST and up puts callers straight into the feed for the morning phone-in or the evening debate. Guests join from a browser link and viewers dial straight into the live feed, on the FAST plan and up.

How do we prove the audience to advertisers?

City-level analytics show exactly which markets watch which hours, and delivery-confirmed impression counts back every ad invoice. Local advertisers buy local news when they can see the audience; the map and the counts are the sales deck.

Does a news channel need special rights?

Your own reporting is yours, which is the point of making it. Agency footage, feeds and music are licensed like anywhere in broadcasting, and archive interviews you produced are programming forever. A news channel built on its own journalism is the cleanest rights position in television.

GET STARTED

Your channel can be live today.

No contract and cancel anytime, with a 7-day money-back guarantee on your first purchase.

Get started See pricing