Wistia Channels
Share a series of episodes with one embed code.
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 new 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.
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 publishing to publish new episodes to your Channel as soon as they are uploaded.
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.
Header
Your Channel’s header contains your logo, title, description, and trailer. Select Edit/Preview Channel from your Episodes page, then add or remove the header, edit its alignment, or select a video to display as a trailer.
Logo, Title and Description
The title will reflect what you’ve added in the title section of your Channel Details page, and serves as another spot to edit it! Right beneath the title, you can also edit the description to give a brief overview of what your Channel is about.
Customize your Channel further by adding a logo. You can then adjust its size and can choose to replace your title with the logo.
Alignment
Align your Channel’s title and description to the left or center of the header.
Opt for left-alignment to give your Channel a more “branded content” design, or center your text over the background of your Channel to draw your viewers to your title and description.
Background
Upload a new image or video to display as your Channel background. If you’d prefer to use a video, you have the option of using a video from any project or Channel in your Wistia account. The background will default to the thumbnail (over cover image for an audio file) of the first episode in the Channel before customizing. When uploading an image for your Channel background, the image will be resized for the size of the device or window it’s being viewed on.
Trailer
You can select any video within your Wistia account to display as the trailer for your Channel, including videos from other Channels and projects in your account.
Once you’ve selected a trailer, a “Play Trailer” option will replace the “Play” button. If needed, you can remove the trailer and select another one.
Featured
Showcase a trailer, new episode, or your most popular content in the Featured section of your Channel. Select Switch featured media to choose an episode to showcase between the header and body of your Channel. Finally, give your Featured section a custom title, headline, and description.
If you choose an episode to highlight in the Featured section, that episode will still appear in your Channel. Featuring a video or podcast episode will not affect your RSS feed.
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.
Transcripts
Allow viewers to access your episodes' transcripts.
Search
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!
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.
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!
Locked Channels
Account Owners, Managers, and users with Collaborator permissions can lock a Channel. On the Channel’s Permissions page, toggle “Set Channel to locked” to lock the Channel. Once locked, Channel collaborators and viewers must be logged in to access it.
If a locked Channel is already embedded on a webpage, it will stop working in that location.
You can still view analytics for locked Channels by heading to a Channel’s Analytics page.
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.
Need a hand? Reach out to our Support Team — we’re here to help!