Wistia Channels

Share a series of episodes with one embed code.

Note
We’ve updated Channels! If your Channels look a bit different from what you see in this article, you’re looking at an older version. Read on to learn more about the most up to date Channels! Questions? Reach out to our Support Team - we’re happy to help!

Channels

Channels are a great option for customizing and sharing a series of video and audio episodes using just one embed code. Your Channels will live in your Content Library with the rest of your projects.

After creating a Channel, you can choose to publish your episodes at a specific time, create sections to organize your content, and even collect subscribers to notify them about new episodes! Then, go ahead and embed your Channel in the wild. If you need to make a change to your published episodes, those updates will be reflected in your embedded Channel.

Want to turn your Channel into a podcast? You can enable podcasting for your Channel and submit it to popular directories like Apple, Spotify, and Google! Pretty cool, right? We think so. Now, let’s get down to business.

Creating a Channel

To create a Channel, select Create from your Content Library page, then click Create a Channel.

If you’d like to enable podcasting for your Channel, check the box under Is this a podcast?. You can then start your podcast from scratch or import an existing podcast from an RSS Feed URL. Check out our Podcast section for everything you need to know about podcasting!

Episodes

Adding Episodes

To add content to your Channel, you can click either Upload or Add from Wistia on your Channel’s page.

Selecting Upload will prompt you to select any content from your computer to upload to your Channel.

Alternatively, the Add from Wistia option will allow you to move or copy content from your Wistia account into your mew Channel. You can even select multiple files to add at once.

Once you’ve uploaded an episode, you can add a title, a summary, and notes from your episode overveiw page. If you’ve enabled podcasting, you’ll find a Podcast Details section where you can select the Episode Type and Episode Number.

If you’ve added an episode summary or ordered transcripts, these tabs will appear on your episode’s popover in your Channel. This will allow your viewer to quickly navigate to view different information about your episode.

If you’ve enabled podcasting and syndicated your podcast to Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts, links to these platforms and your podcast will appear on the episode’s popover in the Channel as well.

For more information on adding episodes to your Channel, check out this page.

Publishing Episodes

When you add new content to your Channel, it will remain in a draft state by default. When you’re ready to share your episode with the world, you can either publish it immediately or schedule a time to publish it in the future! You can also choose whether you’d like future uploads to be published automatically.

Note
If you add new episodes and have already submitted your podcast to directories, it may take some time for them to update to include new content.

Move, Copy, Unpublish, and Archive

To select one or more episodes in your Channel, hover over an episode and check the box next to each one you’d like to select.

This action will display a number of options:

  • Publish or Unpublish (This option will depend on the status of the episodes you’ve selected.)
  • Move to
  • Copy to
  • Archive (This option will depend on your plan. Read more about archiving here.)
  • Delete Media

You can move or copy your episodes to any Project or Channel in your account.

If you choose to delete any episodes, you’ll be prompted to confirm your decision. If the episode has received any plays in the last 90 days, we’ll display the embed location as well.

Replacing Episodes

Need to make any tweaks or major changes to an episode you’ve already published? Our Replace Media tool will allow you to replace your episode without needing to adjust the embed code.

To replace an episode in your Channel, click the two arrows above the upper right-hand corner of your episode.

You can then choose to overwrite the original copy and build on top of its stats, or swap out the original content and start a new set of stats.

Overwriting is a popular choice for making small tweaks to an episode, while swapping is meant for larger edits or entirely new content. Once the replacement has completed uploading, your Channel and all embedded instances will reflect the updated version.

Reordering Episodes

You can easily re-organize your episodes by dragging and dropping them into your preferred order. Episodes at the top of their section will display first on your Channel.

Additional Episode Actions

For more episode options, hover over an episode and click the ellipsis that appears on the right-hand side. You’ll see a menu that includes the following actions:

  • Revert to Draft
  • Embed
  • Share
  • Analytics
  • Move to
  • Copy to
  • Download
  • Delete

Channel Details

Head to the Channel Details tab to add a Title, Description, and a URL for your Channel’s embedded location. On this page, you can also enable automatic pubishing to publish new episodes to your Channel as soon as they are uploaded.

Note
Automatic publishing is not compatible with Channels that have podcasting enabled.

Remember to click Submit Changes once you’ve finished updating your Channel details. Your Channel’s title and description will now appear in your Channel as well as podcasting apps if you’ve distributed your Channel to podcast

Customizing Your Channel

On your Episodes page, select Edit/Preview Channel to customize and share your Channel!

Channel Appearance

Open the Appearance tab of the Customize menu to choose your Channel’s background color, player color, font, and more.

Colors

In the Appearance tab, select any color you’d like, or limit the color spectrum to high-contrast colors for accessibility purposes.

Font

Choose from 25 different fonts to apply to your Channel’s title, description, and episode names.

Note
You can also match your Channel’s font to the font used on your website! Check out our developer documentation to learn more.

Body

Here, you can customize the layout of your Channel and control whether you’d like to display transcripts for your episodes.

Layout

You can choose between three different layout options for your Channel:

  • Carousel
  • Grid
  • List

Each section of your Channel will reflect the layout design you’ve selected.

Sections and Layout

Organize your Channel by creating sections for certain episodes.

Note
Collapsing a section within your Episodes page will not affect how they appear in your Channel.

Transcripts

Allow viewers to access your episodes' transcripts.

Enable this option to allow viewers to search for media in your Channel using specific keywords. All new Channels will have search enabled by default.

Add-Ons

The Add-Ons sections of your Channel’s edit menu is where you can enable the option to collect Email Subscribers.

Email Subscribers

You can enable the Email Subscribers feature so that your viewers can fill out a form (much like our Turnstiles) to receive email updates when you add new content to your Channel.

To add a subscribe form to a Channel, select the “Show Subscribe button” option.

Once this option has been selected, a “Subscribe for updates” button will appear on your Channel. The following options can be configured for the form:

  • Ask for First and Last Name or just ask for email address.
  • Customize upper or lower text on the form.
  • Select a list to sync Subscribers to if you have an email marketing or marketing automation integration connected.

Want to find additional information on the Email Subscribers functionality? Head over to our Subscribers Page!

Sharing Your Channel

Done customizing your Channel? Ready to share that beautiful piece of work? Head on over to the Share tab, and show that masterpiece to the world!

There are a few different ways to share your Channel. If you have embedding enabled, there are two embed codes that you can choose from:

  • Inline embed code
  • Popover embed code

Both options can be responsive or a fixed size!

If you haven’t enabled embedding for your account, you can still share your Channel via a Public URL. If you’d like to embed your Channel elsewhere, check out our Plans Page for more information!

Alert
Do you use a marketing automation platform such as HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot? If you use one of these platforms and would like Channel viewing information and form entries to work with your integration, you will need to embed your Channel on a webpage, rather than use the Public URL. This is because there is no way to add tracking scripts from within Wistia, and the Channel will need to be on a webpage with a tracking script from your marketing automation platform in order for viewing information and form entries to pass through.

Analyze

When you’re not on the Edit/Preview page for your Channel, you’ll notice a number of other options in Wistia. One of these is Analyze.

On your Channel’s Analyze page, you can see a ton of super cool stats! This includes Total Plays, Total Time Played, and Top Episodes. If you’ve enabled podcasting and syndicated your RSS Feed URL to directories, you’ll also be able to see Plays on Wistia, Plays on Other Platforms, Listening Platforms, Time on Wistia, Time on Other Platforms. Phew, that’s a lot! Pretty sweet, right? You can even adjust your Channel stats to view trends for the last 7 days, 28 days, or a custom range.

You can export your Channel’s analytics using the “Export as CSV” button on the top right of your Analyze page. The export will include stats from the date range you have selected in the date picker. We’ll email you a link to download a CSV file with your Channel’s stats.

For more in-depth information on your Channel’s stats, head on over to our Channel Stats Overview page.

Subscribers

So you’ve been building your audience with new subscribers! Head over to your Subscribers page, where you’ll be able to see the Name (if you decided to collect names), Email, and the date they subscribed on.

Click here to learn more about Channel subscribers.

Notify

Use the Notify option on your episode pages to keep your subscribers in the loop about your new content! Your email notifications can be configured for when you publish each individual episode in your Channel.

Next, customize the subject line, preview text, the button link to your episode, and more! In order to set up your email notifications, the Account Owner must first configure the Email Settings in your account. Read our Channel Subscribers and Notifications article for more information.

Promote

If you have Reach & Retarget for Facebook or Google enabled in your account, click the Promote tab to curate episodes for your audience based on their watch behavior. Reach & Retarget allows you to enable pre-built audiences to retarget based on engagement with your content.

If you haven’t connected Facebook or Google yet, you can configure them under the Integrations tab.

For more detailed instructions on setting up and using Reach & Retarget, see our pages on Facebook or Google.

Podcast Settings

Select the Podcast Settings tab to view your find your Checklist, Feed Details, and Distribute pages.

The Checklist walks you through all the steps you’ll need to take before distributing your podcast to directories.

Head to the Feed Details tab to fill out a few of important details, such as your podcast’s show art, format, categorization, and more.

Tip
Make sure to fill out everything on the page before distributing your podcast to directories! You can always update these details down the road, but they may take some time to reflect in podcast directories. Make sure they’re in good shape before sharing your podcast with a larger audience.

You’ll need an RSS Feed URL to submit your podcast to directories. You can find this URL in the Distribute tab.

Enabling and sharing your podcast involves a lot of important steps. Refer to our Help Center Podcast section to find everything you’ll need!

Permissions

All Account Owners and Managers have the necessary permissions to create a Channel, upload content, add customizations, and enable podcasting.

To add users to your Channel, select the Permissions tab and click Add User. You’ll have the option to add users who can view and comment on your Channel, or collaborators who can edit the Channel. You can even add a personalized message to your invite.

Click View User to view their name, email, and role.

Here, you’ll be able to see when they were added to your account, if they’ve activated their login, and a number of other details about their permission status. You can add them to projects in your account as well.

To remove a user from your Channel, click the X next to View User, confirm your decision, and you’ll be all set!

For more information about permissions and users in Wistia, head over to our Permissions page or visit Sharing Media Privately to specifically learn more about private sharing with projects.

More Options

Export or delete your Channel using these options.

Export All Media

Exporting all of the content in your Channel will create a ZIP archive.

Delete Channel

Deleting your Channel will remove all of your episodes, as well as Channel stats. If you’ve enabled podcasting, your podcast will also be removed from any directories that you’ve distributed it to.

Once you click Delete Channel, you’ll be prompted to confirm your decision.

Alert
At this time, we cannot restore deleted Channels. Please be absolutely sure that you would like to delete your Channel before doing so. This action cannot be undone.

Need a hand? Reach out to our Support Team — we’re here to help!