An interstitial creator identifies a playlist of media items, the playlist comprising pointers to the media items. The interstitial creator receives a request to insert an interstitial at a location in the playlist, wherein the location is after a first media item and before a second media item. In response to the request, the interstitial creator provides an interstitial creation interface and receives, through the interstitial creation interface, interstitial configuration parameters. The interstitial creator creates the interstitial based on the received interstitial configuration parameters and inserts a pointer to the interstitial into the playlist at the location.