Tips for Radio Presenter Shows Submission to Radio Stations

INTRODUCTION

Here are our top tips to presenters to consider when submitting shows to internet radio stations.

1. FILE SIZE - Make sure the file size is set to the station kilobits per second output, we transmit at 128kbps which is the most common format. We get shows submitted in 320Kbps which are larger, take much longer to download and are sometimes too large for our Cloud Server. We then have to reformat to 128Kbps anyway. It's a pain for the station as well so watch out. Try out the free
   Media Human Audio Converter to keep things sweet.
   
2. VOLUME LEVELS - Quite often, even the most proficient broadcasters appear to slip up with their levels. Music and voice being very inconsistent. This shows up more when listening at reduced volumes. Our best tip is to set the microphone slightly above the music levels. Make sure your music is all of similar volume, we suggest using a free software tool called  MP3Gain to set all your music to the same level. 
   
   
3. FILE NAMING - Make sure your file naming is also consistent as some cloud systems rely on this to set your shows up correctly. A good guide can be found here: Shier Rzow website
   
   
   

Hope this little article has helped, let us know if you have any comments or other tips for presenters too. Thanks to all who have contributed.

Tips for Radio Show production

RECORDING YOUR CONTENT

Here are a few tips on recording

1. Whatever your show's content make sure you always check your LEVELS!. You would be surprised the number of programmes we sometimes get at Affinity where music to voice levels are drastically different. Always check these. One quick way is to use waveform view on your recording software. The example below is from Audacity. You will be able to see at a glance if levels differ too much.
   
2. Find out what is the best BIT RATE to record your shows. Bear in mind that some stations have upload limits for their content. Always record to the highest bitrate acceptable to your end user /station. Example: Station broadcasts at 128 kbps, anything above this level will not increase sound quality but will increase upload time for the station as higher bit rate = increased file size. We had an example once of a show being submitted that was 365 kbps and size of 6.5 MB, we had a maximum upload file size of 2.0 MB to our old Cloud Server....we had to down scale this to fit...not good for a station. Example below shows the set up for bit rate for broadcast software. Generally stations normally broadcast between 96 - 192 Kbps Bit rate.  
   
3. What file type or CODEC should you record in?. This can be complicated but from our experience the good old MP3 format works for most radio stations.  Find out more here CODEC's

NAMING YOUR SHOW FILE

Here at Affinity, we generally have around 30 shows submitted for broadcast per week. This is very time consuming so anything the show provider can do to assist us is a bonus. Here are a few tips to consider.

1. Save your shows file name in the following format: Presenters Name - Show Name - Date or other detail. This ensures that (most) broadcast software will show the correct details in the right order on the audio player that your listeners will see. The example to the right shows the correct formatted file as uploaded to our server. This shows the detail fills out the correct fields on our broadcast software. This saves time for us as we don't have to update these details so that they display correctly on our player and on any other players broadcasting the show via our TuneIn, or other on line directories. The picture below shows how the above data looks on our player. All this is (or can be) done at the recording stage.
    
2. File METADATA may also help to show your show is professionally produced and you are helping the poor overworked station manager. You can edit the metadata using Windows 10 file explorer by doing the following: 
   1. Open File Explorer (Windows key + E).
   2. Browse the location of the songs  or audio file you want to edit.
   3. Right-click a song or audio file, and select Properties.
   4. Click the Details tab.

   
   

We hope this has helped you to present the data and sound quality at the right level and to demonstrate to the station who may be wanting to broadcast your show that you are a serious broadcasting professional. We will cover more topics on this subject soon.