Publish your video channel's app on Google Play

1. Go to play.google.com/console and sign in with the Google account your channel will keep.
2. Choose Personal if you publish as yourself, or Organization if you publish as a company. An organization account needs a D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet; request it first if you don't have one, since it can take a while.
3. Pay Google's $25 registration fee, once, and complete the identity checks. Google may ask for an ID document and confirm your phone and email, which can take a few days.

Your app, your account: the app is published under your developer account and your name, and you stay in control of it. Moving an app to another account later is possible but fiddly, so start in the one you mean to keep.

A personal developer account created after 13 November 2023 has to run a closed test before the app can go public: at least 12 testers, opted in for 14 days in a row. Organization accounts don't have to.

1. Ask people with Android phones early: your presenters, crew, regular viewers, family and friends.
2. Write down the Google account email each of them uses on their phone.
3. Ask them to keep the app installed for the full two weeks. If fewer than 12 stay in, Google may start the count again.

You start the test itself in step 6, once the app is set up.

1. Choose Create app.
2. App name: the name viewers know your channel by, 30 characters at most. Use the same name you gave the app in your control panel.
3. Default language: the language of your store page.
4. App or game: App. Free or paid: Free. Google never lets a free app turn into a paid one, and your player has nothing to charge for.
5. Tick the declarations and choose Create app.

Go to Main store listing, under Store presence. It's the page people see before they install.

1. Short description (80 characters at most) and full description (up to 4,000): what people can watch on your channel, and what the app does. It plays your live channel, keeps playing in a small window while you use other apps, goes fullscreen when you turn the phone, and starts by itself when you go live.
2. App icon: icon-512.png from the google-play folder of your Store images download.
3. Feature graphic: feature-graphic-1024x500.jpg from the same folder.
4. Phone screenshots: at least two. Install the Test app (.apk) on an Android phone while your channel is live and take them there: the player upright, the player fullscreen, and the channel page under it.
5. In Store settings, choose a category that fits your channel. Entertainment suits most; News & Magazines, Sports or Music & Audio may suit yours better. Add your email address and website as contact details.

The Dashboard lists what Google needs to know before your first release (it's all under App content). Go through each one:

1. Privacy policy: paste the address from your control panel, under Publish in the stores.
2. Ads: no. The app shows no ads of its own. If your broadcast carries commercials, that is your programme, not in-app advertising.
3. App access: all of it works without signing in.
4. Content rating: answer the questionnaire for what your channel shows, honestly, including violence, strong language or anything for adults. Your rating comes from these answers.
5. Target audience: the age groups your channel is made for. If you include children under 13, Google's family rules apply as well.
6. Data safety: the app collects no personal data. It has no accounts, no analytics and no advertising. Like any video player online, the streaming server sees a viewer's IP address in order to send the picture, and Google's rules generally don't count data that is only used briefly to deliver the service. The answers are yours to give; Google's help page on Data safety explains what counts.
7. Foreground service: if Google asks about it, the app uses media playback, so viewers can keep hearing your channel with the screen off when they switch that on. Google may ask for a short video showing it; a screen recording from your phone does the job.
8. Anything else (news app, advertising ID, government or health features): answer for your channel. The app doesn't use the advertising ID.

1. Open Testing, then Closed testing, and create a track (or use the one already there).
2. Add your testers by email address, or a Google Group they're in.
3. Create a release on that track and upload the App bundle (.aab). Google asks about app signing on the first upload: see step 7.
4. Send your testers the opt-in link. A tester only counts once they've accepted it and installed the app from Google Play.
5. After 14 days in a row with 12 or more testers, apply for production access from your Dashboard and answer Google's questions about the test. Google reviews your application.

Ask your testers to watch while you're live, and to tell you what they think. Google asks how the test went, and real feedback makes a better answer.

1. Open Production (or your test track) and choose Create new release.
2. Keep Play App Signing on when Google asks. Google then holds the key that signs the app on your viewers' phones.
3. Upload the App bundle (.aab) from your control panel. It's already signed with your upload key, which shows Google that every update comes from you.
4. Add release notes ("First release" is fine) and save.

Keep a copy of your upload key. In your control panel, the Android upload key card has a Download upload key button. Download the file, note its password (it's shown only once) and keep both somewhere safe. Every build of your app is signed with it.

Your app is a player for your live channel. When the channel is off air, it shows a "We'll be live soon" screen and starts playing by itself the moment you go live. That's what viewers want, but a reviewer who only ever sees that screen may decide the app doesn't work.

1. If you can, keep your channel on air around the clock while the app is in review. Looping a recorded show from your encoder is enough.
2. If you can't, put your broadcast hours (with the time zone) in your full description, so viewers and reviewers both know when to tune in.
3. Before you send the app for review, open the Test app (.apk) on a phone and check that your channel plays.

1. On your Dashboard, every setup task should be ticked.
2. Roll out the production release, then send the changes for review from Publishing overview if Google asks you to.
3. Google checks every new app before it goes live. It often takes a few days, and longer for a new account.
4. Once it's approved, your app is on Google Play. Share the link on air, on your website and on your socials.

Later on: your stream, description, logo, links and contact details come from your channel profile, so changing them needs no update. To change the app's name or icon, build again in your control panel and upload the new App bundle (.aab) as a new release.