I used to run a plugin on my Kodi that would make TV-style channels based on the original airing channel, complete with EPG and everything.
However, it wouldn't let you add lists of shows and create channels that way. I never got around to making my version, but perhaps someone else has done the work since then.
As I was reading the article, I was thinking how glad I was that I switched - I am on the yearly plan now because I'm not going back to "free" search engines.
It's the root OS; that Pi is a media centre in the living room (plus it's taken on a few extra duties since it's always online). It's been going for a good few years now, 8+?
He always mysteriously gets frail and feeble-minded when it's time for him to have to testify in court. Once that's over his memory magically returns to him and he goes back to his mafia don mode.
It's long running, so you want a database so you can store your state. If you're storing state, locking it into a state machine makes sense.
I do agree with some of the commenters that making it closer to an event source design would make more sense still.