About Us

The Channels Story

Channels started as a simple experiment in 2015 to get broadcast TV to play well on streaming devices. It not only worked, it became the default way people watched their live TV.

Fast forward a few years later and Channels has grown to become the best live TV, DVR, and cord cutting experience out there. We've always taken a slow and steady approach that includes all of our fans. Our transparency combined with their excitement and dedication has made Channels something that everyone loves.



The Channels Team

Jon Maddox

Jon Maddox

Jon has been using and developing media center software for almost 20 years, ever since XBMP got him excited. During this time he helped GitHub get off the ground by developing and maintaining vast amounts of internal software that helped GitHub be GitHub. After 8 years there, he went all in on crafting his favorite kind of software with Channels.

Aman Karmani

Aman Karmani

Aman spent years at GitHub as an engineering force while becoming a Ruby Core maintainer and VP of Infrastructure. After years of collaborating with Maddox on private media center software, he got live TV running great on the Apple TV. He leads all of our technical achievements and helps maintain portions of FFMPEG and MPV while doing so.

Eric Lindvall

Eric Lindvall

Eric co-founded Papertrail, taking it from the #1 Heroku add-on, to a cloud based logging powerhouse. After a successful acquisition, he spent time traveling before joining the Channels team to tighten and fine-tune core infrastructure of the Channels platform.

The Channels Journey

First working prototype
Oct 15, 2015
Channels 1.0 hits the App Store

Channels 1.0

Nov 5, 2015
Pause, rewind, and fast forward is added
January 29, 2016
DVR development is announced
Read community post
Apr 16, 2016
Channels for iOS hits the App Store
Read blog post

Channels for iOS

Jul 27, 2016
Channels 2.0 released with grid guide
Read blog post

Channels 2.0 with grid guide

Oct 11, 2016
DVR Public Beta
Read blog post
Jan 10, 2017
Full DVR support for iOS
Read blog post

DVR on Channels for iOS

Jul 18, 2017
DVR officially launched
Read blog post

Channels DVR launched

Oct 2, 2017
Out of home streaming released for Plus users
Oct 17, 2017
Channels for Android TV & Fire TV released
Read blog post

Channels launches for Android TV and Fire TV

Feb 6, 2018
DVR Support added for Android TV & Fire TV
Read blog post
Jun 26, 2018
Channels apps made free for DVR subscribers
Read blog post
Aug 17, 2018
Channels for Android and Fire mobile devices released
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Channels for Android handsets and tablets

Nov 15, 2018
Channels for iOS made free
Read blog post
Jan 22, 2019
TV Everywhere support released
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Jul 25, 2019
Channels 4.0 released
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Channels 4.0 released

Jul 20, 2020
Raspberry Pi Image released
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Raspberry Pi Image released

Nov 11, 2020
Apple Silicon Support
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Apple Silicion Support

Nov 30, 2020
Channels 4.0 for Android & Fire TV released
Read blog post
Sep 21, 2021
Channels 5.0 released
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Channels 5.0

Oct 26, 2021
Home Videos & Enhanced Library Management
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Channels 5.0

Mar 23, 2022
Offline Downloads Added
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download to device

April 11, 2022
News & Sports Sections Added
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news & sports section

Sept 14, 2024
Playlists Added
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add items to a playlist

Feb 7, 2024
Channels 6.0 Released
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add items to a playlist

Sept 11, 2024