Catalog · Apr 14, 2026
Why we pay for EPG cover art (and why no one else does)
A blank EPG cell makes a premium product feel like 2005. The cost of fixing it is one engineer and a metadata contract.
The Electronic Program Guide is the most-viewed part of any TV interface. People spend more time deciding what to watch than actually watching. So why do 90% of IPTV EPGs look like a 2005 spreadsheet?
The answer is that cover art is metadata, and metadata is the kind of unglamorous infrastructure work that nobody puts in their marketing materials. Engineers don’t get to demo “we added artwork to the EPG” at the next standup.
We added artwork to the EPG. Every cell shows the cover. Every episode of a series links to the show’s poster. News programs get network branding. It took one engineer four weeks and an ongoing contract with a metadata provider that costs us about $2/month per active user.
Was it worth it? Our usage analytics say yes. Sessions that start in the EPG are 40% more likely to convert to a stream than sessions that start from search. Visual cues work. Tiny details compound.