DemoTV

DemoTV is a 24/7, television-style channel where short product demos play continuously and the audience — not advertisers — decides what sits at the top. Founders submit a demo, viewers watch two products go head to head in a Channel Battle and back the one they would actually try, and that pick becomes the audience rank. Channels 1, 2 and 3 are the current top three on the station, driven by an Elo-style audience score built from wins and battles. The station is made for independent makers, startups and product teams who want their demo discovered by people genuinely interested in trying new tools, rather than ranked by whoever spends the most money. Watching and voting requires no sign-up. Getting a new product in front of the right people is hard, and most channels hand the top slots to whoever pays for them. That leaves independent builders competing for attention against budgets they cannot match. DemoTV separates the two ideas: exposure can be bought through clearly labelled placements, but standing on the station cannot. Rank 1 on a channel is the demo viewers picked most — the page states plainly that it is not a paid slot and that airtime never buys rank or a channel. This gives founders a place where a strong demo can outrank a bigger budget, and gives viewers a feed of products that other people, not ad buyers, decided were worth a look. The core mechanic is the Channel Battle. Two products built for the same job are shown head to head, and the viewer simply backs the one they would try — no sign-up required. That pick feeds the audience rank, and the resulting ranking decides which demos occupy Channels 1–3, the current top three on the TV. Each demo carries an audience score alongside a win and battle count; the number one entry at the time of capture showed a score of 1368 from 145 wins across 178 battles, with Channels 2 and 3 close behind on 1344 and 1315. The directory board mirrors the channel: rank 1 sits first on the board and is the same tape as Channel 1, and Channels 2 and 3 are the next two. Demos only start playing when a viewer presses play or selects a channel, so nothing auto-plays just because someone scrolled past. For founders, getting on the station starts with a free submission — no card needed. A demo can be a YouTube link or an MP4 upload (40 MB maximum), and every submission is reviewed before it goes live. The submission flow runs through four steps: website details, video, visitor action, and review. Before submitting, makers can have DemoTV suggest a title and tagline from their project URL, and they choose the category whose battles the demo will join. Once approved, a private dashboard provides a single embed code for the maker's own website — a widget containing the video, an optional try link and a chosen button label such as Visit website, Start free, Join waitlist, Book a demo or Claim offer, with a configurable button destination. From the dashboard, founders can also request testers, cap reveals, and claim their company. Makers who want to reward viewers who picked them can attach an optional viewer thank-you — a backer code such as a time-boxed free week or a percentage discount, which never moves the Elo score and does not appear on battle buttons. Paid reach exists, but it is kept separate and clearly labelled. After claiming a listing, a founder can buy airtime units (5, 10, 25 or 100, with the price shown at checkout) which add promoted placements across the reel and directory; the page states repeatedly that these units never change a demo's audience score or channel. Featured partners pay $39 for 30 days of labelled placement as a homepage card — the copy notes that partners support the station, never the rank. Demo Studio is a paid option, priced at $79 for “Make my tape,” where a maker pastes their site and gets automated production with station QA before air, subject to their approval, while rank remains audience-only. Launch Week is a labelled 7-day sponsorship. Every one of these options buys exposure, completed views and clicks, never the ranking. The overall workflow is deliberately simple and stated on the site as three steps. First, submit your demo for free — a YouTube link or MP4, no card needed, reviewed before it goes live, with the message that submitting is free to founders. Second, win Channel Battles, because viewers pick the demo they would try and those wins move Channels 1–3. Third, boost with airtime if you want extra reach — optional labelled ads that become available after claiming the listing and that never touch the rank. A new entry begins as a pending station approval; the demo stays private until review is complete, and the maker receives a private management link and an email when it is live. For makers, the outcomes are discovery and validation rather than empty impressions. A demo that viewers would genuinely try climbs, so the success metric is real audience preference instead of ad spend. Founders get an embeddable widget they can place on their own site, a way to recruit testers, a company listing with a contact-the-maker form and reporting tools, and a channel that keeps showing their tape to people browsing the station. For viewers, DemoTV offers a way to discover independent products, watch short demos and try something new — with the ability to influence what gets seen next by backing the products they would try. Use cases follow directly from this setup. An indie founder launching a new app can submit a short demo for free, get it reviewed, and enter the relevant category battle without spending anything. A product with a direct competitor can be placed head to head in a Channel Battle — the site itself shows a battle between two app builders — and let viewers decide which one they would try. A maker who wants to test demand can attach a backer code and give viewers who picked them a time-boxed free week or discount, then measure interest. A team that already has a demo video can embed the widget on its own site so visitors watch the demo and take the try action directly. Advertisers and companies with budget can buy labelled airtime, featured partner placement or Launch Week sponsorship to reach the station's audience while leaving the ranking untouched. And a viewer simply looking for new tools can browse the demo directory, sorted by audience rank or newest, to find products to try. The directory itself is organised around categories that define which battles a demo joins: AI agents, AI app builders, video generation, chat assistants, computer use, developer tools, design & no-code, data & analytics, marketing & sales, productivity, infra & APIs, games, crypto & web3, crypto wallets, crypto infra, robotics & hardware, fintech & payments, security & privacy, education, consumer & social, climate & energy, and other. Makers can suggest a new category of 2–40 characters, which is listed under Other until reviewed. The board is paginated at 10 demos per page with sorting by audience rank or newest, and the station reported 110 live demos, 571 audience backings, 54.2K views and 6,845 visitors at the time of capture. Station numbers only appear once live demos exist. Contact for takedowns, press or submissions is hello@demotv.lol, reporting options cover scams, spam, malware, adult content, impersonation and broken videos, and the site's optional first-party analytics are explicitly described as containing no ad trackers or search terms. The takeaway is straightforward: DemoTV is an audience-ranked channel for product demos. It gives founders free airtime that is earned by the audience's own picks, keeps paid promotion clearly labelled and strictly separate from rank, and gives viewers a simple, sign-up-free way to watch demos and decide which product deserves the top channels.