A Video on Demand (VOD) service provides VOD offering in response to a graphical user interface (GUI) screen that renders a guide of available VOD offerings. A concurrent stream of promotional content is also rendered along with the VOD offerings, and displays various VOD offerings and advertising media, typically rendered in a screen portion adjacent the VOD guide offerings. Such promotional content is often referred to as “barker” content and is delivered over a barker channel that transmits in parallel with the VOD guide. Delivery of the VOD guide and associated barker channel content includes a redundant barker player and failover processing that identifies failed barker content transmission (streaming) and commences transmission from a standby barker player with minimal interruption to the rendered viewer experience.