Radioplayer

Radioplayer is an initiative by the radio industry to improve the experience of listening to radio on internet connected devices. It was originally proposed by the BBC and began in the UK but is now also available in countries including Canada, Ireland, Germany and Norway. Depending on your country's participation, this may include a web player (also known as 'console'), mobile apps, and further integration with other devices including cars.

The Radioplayer app in Aiir helps you manage your station's presence in the platform, including the player on your website and their mobile app.

The web player has a standard user interface for all stations, with controls at the top and bottom, and a space in the middle (referred to as the 'plug-in space') for stations to use how they wish. Radioplayer provide stock widgets to fill this space, which makes it easy to display 'now playing' information, programme schedule and 'on demand' items. Alternatively these can be replaced with any a content station chooses to display, by setting a URL of a webpage which is shown in an 'iframe'.

Aiir hosts Radioplayer consoles on behalf of stations and maintains the code with the latest updates. The Radioplayer app in our platform make it easy to customise and manage the player, and a station's appearance in search results.

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Joining Radioplayer

The first step in joining Radioplayer and setting up a new console is to speak directly to Radioplayer. They will explain the process and tell you the cost involved for joining. 

Check you have access to the Radioplayer section of Aiir. This depends on the package you subscribe to.

The Radioplayer app in Aiir lets you configure the web player with appropriate theming and stream settings.

Radioplayer will give you an ID, which you should add to the settings.

You can click View Player to see what your player looks like, and you will need to give the URL of the player to Radioplayer for them to complete the setup process.

Setting up and customising the Radioplayer console

If your website is hosted on our platform, you should use our tools to manage your Radioplayer console too. The options we present in our platform mostly map to the configuration options that Radioplayer make available for customising the player. You cannot change the layout of the player or how any of the standard controls work, but you can choose a theme and the colour scheme for the various controls and buttons.

The plug-in space is the central portion of the player and occupies most of the space.

You can choose to either display Radioplayer's built-in widgets, or to insert content of your own by providing a webpage URL.

Radioplayer's widgets are 'now playing', schedule and On Demand. They don't require any further customisation as they use a standard layout and pull all their data from Radioplayer's central systems. Aiir takes care of providing the station, programme and track information to Radioplayer on your behalf.

Advertising

Radioplayer have integrated a number of 3rd party ad providers with the web player. 

Sadly this doesn't include our built-in Aiir ad system, so we're unable to let you serve ads in to the player from there. If you want to display ads in the player or run pre-rolls, you'll need to use one of the 3rd party providers listed on the player settings page. 

Unfortunately we're not able to offer a great deal of support with this as it is purely a system between Radioplayer and those ad providers, so you will need to seek help from either the ad provider or Radioplayer directly.

Streams

Radioplayer require a compatible stream for the web player, and at least one suitable stream for the mobile and tablet apps.

You'll find the options for updating your stream URLs in the Web Player and Mobile App tabs.

Speak to Radioplayer support if you have questions regarding the type of streams which must be provided. If an incompatible stream is provided, you may not appear in the mobile and tablet apps at all.

On Demand

An On Demand section is provided by Aiir in the plug-in space, and easily managed using the On Demand app in Aiir. Content added to the On Demand section is automatically 'published' to the Radioplayer search engine, so it is easy to discover from any player. 

Information for Radioplayer Search

The Search tab contains properties identifying your station, which are used to represent the station in the Radioplayer search engine. It is important to ensure this information is accurate and the description fields contain as much descriptive information as possible. The Long Description can be very long, and can contain references to your music (typical artists on rotation) and programming (list the schedule and specialist shows). 

We send up to three types of information to Radioplayer on your behalf.  Service Information (SI for short) describes your station and is required. It is the basic requirement of appearing in the search engine. Programme Information (PI) is your daily schedule, and we compile this for you and feed it into the search engine so listeners can search for your programmes, and see who is on air before switching. Programme Events (PE) are the tracks you play, and these can also appear in the search results. So if you're playing an artist, and you search for that artist, your station should appear prominently in the results.

Radioplayer Mobile App

The Mobile app section includes streams and logos, and should be completed if you wish for your station to appear in the Radioplayer mobile apps. A low bitrate stream is required as a minimum to be eligible for the app. 

Linking to Radioplayer

To use Radioplayer as your website's primary web player, head to the Stations section of Aiir. Select your station, and then scroll down to the Website section. Change the "Player to use" option to "Radioplayer". Soon after you save your changes on this page, "Listen Live" buttons on your website will link to Radioplayer.

Browser support

The browsers, operating systems and devices supported by the Radioplayer web console are  detailed here. 

Ingesting RSS feeds into Radioplayer

Radioplayer has the power to automatically ingest RSS feeds that stations provide, and play the audio directly in the player.  

This is not set up by Aiir, instead stations should contact Radioplayer directly and they will assist with setting this up.

Podcasts in Radioplayer

Our Radioplayer integration doesn't currently support listing podcasts in the console, such as those from the Podcasts app in Aiir. You can use our On Demand app to list specific audio programmes, shown in a separate tab in the player, but for podcasts this will require extra effort for duplicating in both your podcast and on demand. Radioplayer support ingesting RSS feeds into the search engine directly - you should contact them if you're interested in setting this up.

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