I guess I was not clear. If I go to Tubi and choose a movie, I can watch it on demand. There are periodic breaks for commercials that I cannot fast forward through. This is what I think most free ad-supported television (FAST) is (and should be).
What I don't understand is that Tubi (among others, and it sounds like the D&D channel will do this, too) also has channels that are scheduled like broadcast TV, and there are some shows that are only on this scheduled channel. These channels also have commercials, and it looks like the same number of commercials as on-demand streaming, but if I am not streaming their channel at the right time to watch it, I miss out. That seems to severely limit the number of viewers of a particular show. Viewers today have become accustomed to time-shifting in one way or another; these channels are at odds with that.
So if both forms have the same amount of commercials, and the owners get paid the same rate for the commercials (an assumption, I know), it seems that scheduling viewing makes less money. Who would do that (discounting a The Producers scheme)?
There are a few reasons for this but I'll get the easiest and most boring one out of the way: Licensing.
Licensing a movie or TV show for broadcast (even "broadcast" on a streaming service) is a hell of a lot cheaper than licensing it for video-on-demand. For Tubi especially, this is a big deal as they can get programming licensed for the "broadcast" cheaper than they can for the VODs.
This is less of an issue for a D&D-focused service unless they're going to branch out to general fantasy, in which case picking up old re-runs of Hercules or Xena or old 70s/80s fantasy movies to fill out the schedule would be cheaper that way. Or they might be licensing material from defunct platforms like The Fantasy Network, which was a streaming service launched partially by Zombie Orpheus (the people who make The Gamers and JourneyQuest) along with a couple of other independent studios that closed earlier this year. Licensing that for "broadcast" is cheaper than licensing for VOD.
You can also sometimes face hurdles licensing some material due to exclusivity deals. If Netflix licenses a certain movie or TV show for 6 months, it might be in the license it can't be available on any other on-demand streaming service during that time. But depending on the specific wording, a broadcast channel wouldn't count toward that exclusivity.
Now for the more likely reasons specifically for a D&D network.
A lot of people like having the TV on as background noise and don't trust autoplay. The other podcast I edit is a horror movie review show and I use Tubi a lot for the show notes as it's often the best place to find old 80s/90s horror movies streaming online for free. But if you leave the autoplay on, it's roulette with all the random god-awful direct-to-video trash they have licensed that are so bad it makes Troma movies look like Cecil B. DeMille. Having a broadcast channel means it's curated so you're less likely to get something disgusting while you're doing chores around the house.
Then there are two specific types of people: Those who are used to broadcast and cable television and prefer to watch that way (who tend to be older), and people who always used streaming services and VOD and where broadcast television is a novelty (who tend to be younger). For the former, a "channel" is more familiar and there's far less analysis paralysis in trying to figure out what to watch. You don't have thousands of titles staring you in the face, you just have what's on and you can watch it or not. For the latter, it's more like Twitch streams where you can build a community around it. Everyone gets on Discord at the same time to watch the new episode of Insert Show Here and talk about it while they watch. No messing around with browser plugins or timing out pushing play together because it's a broadcast, it's going out at the same time to everybody.
