Roku has expanded its free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) offering with a channel devoted entirely to AI-generated content, marking a departure from the format’s usual focus on classic films and series.
This week, Roku added four new channels to its streamable programming library. Alongside dedicated feeds for old episodes of Mad TV, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and a selection of Black sitcoms, the platform launched a 24/7 stream featuring projects from Colin Petrie-Norris’ AI startup, Fairground. The partnership represents a notable step for Fairground, which launched in 2025 and is reportedly developing its own AI-generated adaptations of Robin Hood and Dracula.
How the Fairground channel works
Like all FAST channels, Fairground AI Creator TV offers a curated selection of programming meant to be watched passively. Viewers can scrub forward and backward a few seconds, but there is no way to choose exactly which videos the channel serves. All of the content is produced with AI by a range of content creators who have partnered with the company.
There is no consistent theme or genre across the programming. Some videos appear to be generated by models trained on footage taken from professionally produced anime, while others resemble low-quality “lifelike” CGI. Some pieces carry semi-cohesive narratives, including a “live-action” horror about people defeating a demon by mocking it, and a fantasy about Greek heroes that seems to draw on The Odyssey.
Production quality and payment
The length of the videos and the way their audio is mixed suggest a degree of post-production editing. However, the general lack of visual polish makes clear that they were assembled from machine-generated clips rather than shots crafted by a human artist. The contrast becomes especially apparent when the stream cuts to an advertisement for one of the traditionally produced films and shows that Roku offers.
Fairground’s website states that it pays its content partners for their generations, in addition to granting them an undisclosed share of platform revenue. There is no mention of which models are used to create the content, nor whether the company secured rights to use whatever training data is involved. Fairground states that its programming is designed for the living room rather than the feed.
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Image: theverge.com
