Forum Discussion
I am in the exact same boat as you.
I have (had) 2 very successful screensaver channels that have now completely vanished and my installs have dropped like a rock.
The change seems to have started around end of May/early June when Roku pushed out their new screensaver channels (which are junk - just a new way to serve ads). In this update, they also removed the "Screensavers" category from the on-device streaming channels list, and changed the ranking algorithm for the list of screensavers in "Settings".
Roku partner success gave me the same excuse. They claim the new algorithm is based on the number of active devices "currently using" the screensaver, instead of installs/ratings like before. It obviously is glitched, despite what they're saying. At the time I reported the issue, my internal server tracking showed 8k unique devices showing my screensaver at least once in the past 24 hours. There is no way some $1.99/1 star/1 review has more than that many active users.
Roku needs to fix this asap, but they seem to not care and are happy with the "all's well" line. Like you, I have invested a lot of time/money into developing the channels and acquiring content, and now my revenue has been cut by 60% and will continue to drop the longer it goes.
Additionally - the roku.com "channel store" continued to use the old ranking algorithm for a while, but it seems now that it has been also changed to the jacked up one.