.cast
Is .cast a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.cast is not contested. One applicant has said publicly that it applied to run it, and nobody else has, as of 15 August 2026. It is Link Freedom Group.
A natural ending for podcasters and streamers, but rival endings already serve that crowd, so it stays a niche pick that needs explaining.
podcasters, live-streamers, video creators, and broadcast-adjacent media brands wanting a short verb-like ending for a show or streaming product; secondarily casting agencies and fishing/angling hobby brands.
In LFG's published list of 300+ strings submitted before the ICANN window closed on 2026-08-12. Their catalog tagline: “Share your story with the world.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet almost exactly: a short, polysemous everyday English verb for the act of distributing media, sold as an identity suffix to broadcasters and content producers who already say the word daily, and it only works if that verb habit transfers from content vocabulary to address space.
Also a generic verb/noun naming a unit of produced media that entertainment and creator businesses would put their primary identity in front of, though it sells the finished program rather than the act of transmitting it, so the buyer skews producer/network rather than distributor.
A plain medium noun bought by the same class of buyer — stations, networks and program-makers naming themselves after how they reach an audience — but it names an established, incumbent-owned medium rather than an open verb, so it carries community-ownership pressure that a neutral verb like the target does not.
What a .cast domain is
.cast is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. One applicant has said publicly that it applied for .cast.
Is the .cast domain extension real yet?
.cast is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .cast domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .cast name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .cast was .stream, delegated on .
Is .cast a real TLD?
Not yet. .cast is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant said publicly that it applied for .cast in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round. Every claim on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“.cast · Lifestyle · “Share your story with the world.””Link Freedom Group
“LFG voluntarily published its full list of submissions ahead of ICANN’s official Reveal Day.”PR Newswire (Link Freedom Group)
“Top level domain registry Link Freedom Group (LFG) has disclosed more than 300 strings submitted as part of the ICANN new top level domain name program.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Band chosen: 30-49 (usable but limited). The string has genuine semantic pull: 'cast' sits inside podcast, broadcast, livecast, and screencast, and creator-economy naming already leans on that root (by analogy, several well-known podcast and streaming apps embed 'cast' in their brand names). That suggests real registration demand from show names and streaming tools over the next 5 years. It is not in the 50-69 band because the audio/video creator category already has entrenched TLD habits: by analogy, .tv and .fm function as the recognized endings for video and podcast identities, and .live and .stream absorbed much of the adjacent demand without either becoming a primary-identity default; a newcomer verb TLD would likely land behind them, competing on price and novelty rather than as a default identity, with a thin aftermarket. It is not in the 10-29 band because the demand is not event-driven or joke-like: shows and streaming products launch continuously, the string reads cleanly as a suffix (name.cast parses like 'podcast'), and multi-meaning demand (casting for actors, metal casting, angling) adds a long tail. Registration volume for the applicant is unknown; pricing strategy is unknown. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed a large portfolio in the 2026 round and lists this string under 'Lifestyle' with the tagline 'Share your story with the world.', which signals a broad consumer positioning rather than a focused creator-tools push; portfolio-scale operation gives no particular signal either way on category-specific marketing depth. Main market uncertainty: whether podcast and streaming platforms' own subdomain/handle systems (creators identifying by platform handle rather than owned domain) leave enough appetite for standalone domains in this category at all.