Does The Roku Channel allow you to control autoplay?
Does The Roku Channel allow you to control autoplay?
Autoplay is a benefit to some, and a scourge to others. Can you control the setting with The Roku Channel?
The Roku Channel blends the experience of paid and free streaming services in a lot of ways. Although The Roku Channel itself is a free, ad-supported streaming service, it has a wide selection of originals just as paid streaming services do. It also allows you to add supplementary subscriptions to your account, making it easy to find and watch those services.
But what about the features on The Roku Channel? Do they measure up to the content you can find on the streamer? We’ll answer that question with particular reference to the use of autoplay — and whether or not you can turn it off — with the streaming service here.
What you need to know about autoplay on The Roku Channel
Can you turn off autoplay on The Roku Channel?
I think the best answer that I can give is that you can, but only on a Roku device — and only in a limited sense. This community support thread from the Roku website says that viewers can open the Settings menu with their remote, click Accessibility, and switch autoplay to off if they want to disable the feature.
There are a couple of things to note here. First, this procedure only turns off the autoplay of trailers and previews; there doesn’t seem to be a way to control the autoplay of the next episode on The Roku Channel. Second, I didn’t find any Accessibility options on The Roku Channel at all when I checked for them on other devices.
I looked in the Fire TV Roku app, the Roku app for Android, and on the web, and an exhaustive search did not turn up any method of adjusting autoplay on these devices at all. So, I’m forced to conclude that Roku keeps this setting only for its own operating system.
Will Roku roll out autoplay settings to more devices?
I wouldn’t be surprised if this never happens. The lure of greater accessibility setting access might draw some customers to buy a Roku smart TV or streaming player to watch The Roku Channel, and as long as that lure exists, I think Roku may be content to keep some features — like control over autoplay settings — exclusive to its own devices.
Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is a free, ad-supported streaming service that offers a broad mix of movies, TV shows, live linear channels, and original programming. Available to all viewers — not just Roku device owners — the service features licensed content from major studios alongside Roku Originals, which include exclusive series, movies, and specials previously produced for Quibi, as well as new original projects developed specifically for the platform.