Integrating third party news content providers
While news content can be maintained manually by your team, you can also include content from third parties via RSS feeds.
For customers in the UK, we have a long standing relationship and integration with IRN and their supplier Sky News.
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RSS
If you would like to display the content of a third party's news articles on your website or mobile app, you'll need to request an RSS feed from the supplier and ensure they grant you permission to use their content in this way.
Once you have the feed URL, you can set this up by heading to the Categories page in the News app. It will automatically check the feed's compatibility and warn you of any problems.
Articles from RSS feeds are pulled in on a regular interval - there may be a delay between content appearing in the feed and it appearing on your website or app.
Aiir cannot be held responsible for any issues you may incur as a result of integrating third party feeds.
Our system expects certain properties of each article to be available in specific tags, otherwise we cannot show the content on your website.
The properties are as follows, with the tags listed in the order they're used if available:
- A unique identifier for each article. Without this, we cannot import articles. It must not change if the article is updated.
- <guid>
- <dc:identifier>
- <link>
- Title.
- <title>
- Published date and time.
- <pubDate>
- Abstract. This should be the first line and description of the article.
- <cm:Abstract>
- <abstract>
- <description> - only if it isn't used for the body (see below) otherwise abstract will be blank.
- Body. The content of the article.
- <content:encoded>
- <description>
- Images. We'll try each of the following in this order:
- <media:content url=".....">
- <enclosure url=".....">
- <media:group>
- <media:content url=".....">
- As a last resort, we'll look at the body and extract the URL from the first <img> tag found.
If you don't have rights to use full content of an RSS feed on your site, you may be able to embed the RSS and link out to the full stories on the original website through the RSS block within Template Builder or a RSS block in Page Manager.
IRN
IRN (Independent Radio News) offer national and international news content to radio stations in the UK. Online content is available to stations in the form of regularly updated feeds and video streams. This content is supplied by Sky News.
Since 2009, IRN has also offered weather information through an arrangement with the Met Office.
To include this news and weather content on your site, you must:
- have the News and Weather platform apps as part of your website package
- have a digital content contract with IRN, which should be agreed directly with IRN
To have access to this content, IRN have historically stipulated the station must carry certain advertising, both on air around news bulletins, and online around the digital content.
Online, stations were required to carry a Leaderboard, Skyscraper and MPU ad formats around all pages that carry the Sky News generated content, with the exception of the site homepage. Because of these requirements, articles from IRN are not eligible to appear in mobile apps. You should check with IRN if these requirements still apply to you.
There is no such stipulation for advertising around the Met Office content.
The categories of Sky News stories available are:
- Business
- Headlines
- Showbiz
- Sport
- Strange News
- Technology
- Politics
- UK News
- World News
An additional Videos category is compiled by us, comprising of the most recent stories from all categories with an associated video. IRN's digital content contract requires this to be included by all stations.
Radio News Hub
If you're a customer of Radio News Hub, they can supply an RSS feed which can be used in the News app to show stories on your website or mobile app.
Once you're given the feed, create a category in News and select "an RSS feed" as the source.
Radio News Hub's feeds don't typically contain the full body of each article, so articles can't be shown on your website or app. Instead, each article will link out to Radio News Hub's website.
You can find further information on our dedicated page for including Radio News Hub stories.