Running a radio station isn’t an easy task so every little bit of help goes a long way. Running a radio station involves more than you might think. You’re responsible for finding and categorising audio, managing a packed show schedule, a roster of presenters and hosts, promoting your online and mobile presence and, in a lot of cases, making sure your station is commercially viable and can stay on air.
Sound like a lot? It can be.
Enter from stage left radio automation software. It might just be your saving grace.
What is radio automation?
Simply put, radio automation software helps to automate the play out and scheduling of audio files and shows for your station.
The edges of the definition might get a bit fuzzy, as radio automation systems may include other features that help to automate the management of your radio station but the vast majority are centred around play out.
How can radio automation software help your station?
There are many, many ways that radio automation software helps to lighten the load on your shoulder’s and streamline the process of starting and running an internet radio station.
You have the basics like automatically fading in and out different songs and shows. That’s just the bare minimum though.
Where radio automation really shines is in automating your schedule and choosing songs for you. You’re running an internet radio station. The last thing you want is to be manually queueing up the next song each and every time.
Radio automation systems can help by playing out pre-recorded shows at the specified time – meaning you don’t need to be there pressing play.
Radio automation software can also help with automatically building playlists and selecting songs for play out based on rules and categories that you define. This can be a big win for getting back your time. You still have to put in the legwork of selecting the audio to fill your media library but you can then let the automation system handle choosing the songs for you. This can make it a lot easier to fill out your schedule and make sure your listeners have content 24/7.
You then have the other side of the coin where your radio automation system remembers what has been played and hopefully, if it’s a good system, how many people were listening to make it easier to report and comply with licensing and royalties.
What’s unique about Radio Cult’s radio automation?
Here’s where we plug our own system - Radio Cult. We built Radio Cult from the ground up for independent and community radio so we support all of the radio automation features discussed above but also some more! Let’s get into it.
We support a lot more repeating rules than other systems. That means our system is set up to track the calendar and events of real-world stations. Our event automation makes it easy to fill out your calendar in record time.
With our range of media types, you’re in control with what we play out. Compared to other systems, it takes a few seconds to schedule a pre-record or playlist.
You can even schedule events in advance before you have the show ready yet. We’ll show you any events which are missing media. This helps you schedule far out in advance and stay on top of shows that are planned but not yet ready.
We also provide you with management tools for your hosts and presenters. This unlocks fine grained permission over access to your Radio Cult account. More than that though, it lets us lock down access to your live streams. With Radio Cult you can specify who can go live and when. Only the host you want will be able to go live during a slot, and then we disconnect said host at the end. This means your schedule stays on time and you’re not on the phone telling them to get off the live stream!
FAQs
What are the different types of radio systems?
Generally, radio automation systems are either free (e.g. open-source) or paid and can be online or run locally as desktop applications or on local servers.
Radio Cult runs on the web, meaning there’s no setup or management needed on your end. It’s free to get started as well with our 10-day free trials!
Radio automation software for Mac, Windows & Linux?
Radio Cult runs on your browser so it’s compatible with all operating systems.
Is Radio Cult compatible with local or other radio automation systems?
Yes! It’s perfectly fine to use a separate radio automation system. Just connect live to your radio station via the details on your Radio Cult dashboard and push the audio from your radio automation system of choice through to us