Public Radio Player

How to submit your stream and promote the Player

The Public Radio Player is here to help your station reach existing listeners wherever they go, and reach new listeners, too. The project is open to all public radio stations in the United States (see below for eligibility). You can submit up to four streams — including HD streams and multiple bit rate options. The more public radio station participation, the better this application gets!

1. Check if your stream qualifies for inclusion

To be in the Public Radio Player, your station must meet at least one of the following criteria:

• CPB qualified
• NPR member station
• APM affiliate
• PRI affiliate
• PRX paid station member
• National Federation of Community Broadcasters participating member
• Station Resource Group member station

2. Submit your stream information to PRX

First, gather and review the information you will need to submit. Below are the recommended technical specs for live audio streams in the Public Radio Player.

Supported Stream Formats

• The Player supports MP3, AIFF, AIFC, WAVE, CAF, NeXt, and ADTS formats and performs best with streams 64kbps or lower. More about bit rates and mobile streaming.
• The Player does NOT support Windows Media (.wma) or Real Media (.ram) streams, nor can it read streams from a Flash player.
• The Player CANNOT extract the stream from .pls and .m3u files, even if it supports the streams they contain. Please provide the direct stream instead.
• An upcoming version of the Player will accept additional formats including AAC, AACP, PLS, and M3U and we’ll update this page when that happens.

Email the Following Information

Public Radio Exchange (PRX) now manages stream submissions. To submit a new stream, email publicradioplayer .at. prx .dot. org with “Station:” in the subject line and provide the following information. You can submit up to four streams; just include the same detail for each.

1. Full Name
2. Your email address
3. Position at your station
4. Your station’s call letters and frequency
5. Your station’s street address
6. Audio stream URL
7. Stream bit rate
8. Stream market (city or region)
9. Full name of technical contact at your station (for the Internet stream)
10. Phone number of technical contact at your station (for the Internet stream)
11. E-mail address of technical contact at your station (for the Internet stream
12. Please indicate which of the following groups your station belongs to (required for Player participation)

• CPB qualified
• NPR member station
• APM affiliate
• PRI affiliate
• PRX paid station member
• National Federation of Community Broadcasters participant member
• Station Resource Group member

For display on the Public Radio Player, indicate how you want the following information presented:

1. Station Name: This is how the stream name will appear in the list on the Player. We recommend identifying your geographic location and/or service in your stream name. Max. 35 characters including spaces
2. Call Letters & Frequency: Max. 22 characters including spaces
3. Website address: We link to this from the stream page in the app
4. Stream/Station Logo: Can be .gif, .jpg, or .png. Max. height is 100px; max. width 242 px

Things to Keep in Mind

Station Schedule Data: Stream schedule information on the Public Radio Player is pulled from Composer, a Public Interactive tool. Any questions about schedule data should be directed to Public Interactive.

Reporting: The Public Radio Player calls your station’s Internet stream. As a result, you should be able to use your existing reporting tools to measure use of your stream through the player. The Public Radio Player and the organizations involved in the collaboration will not have access to reporting data specific to your station’s stream.

Bandwidth: Our goal is to make the Public Radio Player widely adopted. Stations should be aware that inclusion in this application may increase usage of your Internet streams. If you have concerns about being able to support additional use of your Internet stream, talk to the technical contact at your station.

Email Us for Other Reasons, Too

Stations should email publicradioplayer .at. prx .dot. org with “Station:” in the subject line for the following:

• To submit and edit station and stream information (see above for details)
• To update on-demand program information for programs you “own”
• For general questions about the app
• If your listeners have questions about the Public Radio Player that you can’t answer, please direct them to http://www.publicradioplayer.org, where they can comment on our Give Feedback page, which we monitor regularly.

Note: Station stream schedule information is pulled from Composer, a Public Interactive tool. Any questions about schedule data should be directed to Public Interactive.

We get a lot of inquiries, so please give us time to get to yours. But we will!

3. Promote your participation in the Public Radio Player

Direct and Affiliate Links

The short link to the Public Radio Player in the iTunes Store is: http://tinyurl.com/publicradioplayer

Web Graphics

We have a number of web graphics in various sizes to use on your station site.

Badges for Your Blog

Audio Promos by Peter Sagal

Public Radio Player promos voiced by Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me host Peter Sagal are available for on-air or online use:

Ideas for On-Air Promotional Copy

“Introducing the Public Radio Player. iPhone users can listen to [your Station Name/Call Letters] for free via streaming audio. For more information on [Station Name/Call Letters], visit [Station URL - OR - Public Radio Player DOT Org].”

“Live streaming audio from [your Station Name/Call Letters] is now available on iPhones using the free Public Radio Player app. For more information, visit [Station URL - OR - Public Radio Player DOT Org].”

“You can now stream [your Station Name/Call Letters] using the Public Radio Player on your iPhone or iPod Touch. For more information on the free download, visit [Station URL - OR - Public Radio Player DOT Org].”

“Listen to [your Station Name/Call Letters] on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Download the free Public Radio Player and enjoy public radio on the go. More information available at [Station URL - OR - Public Radio Player DOT Org].”

Video demo of Public Radio Player 2.0

Here’s a brief tour of an earlier version of the Player, but it still gives a good idea of how it works. Feel free to embed on your site.