I have two pieces of news this month. One is a new free download you can use today. The other is a request: I’m looking for stations to help test the playlist program I mentioned in October.
New and free: SA Mixcloud Theme and Station Core
If your station posts its shows on Mixcloud, this gives you a WordPress website built around them. It comes in two parts. Station Core is a plugin that pulls your shows from your Mixcloud account, keeps your weekly schedule and sends messages from your contact form. The SA Mixcloud Theme draws the pages your listeners see: home, shows, schedule, blog, contact, about and a live page.
A few things I think you’ll like:
- Click Sync now and new shows appear on your site. Shows you’ve changed on Mixcloud are updated too.
- A show opens in a small player window, so listeners can keep browsing.
- When you go live, flip one switch and a note at the top of the site sends visitors to the broadcast.
- Five colour choices: Night red, Night blue, Night green, Night gold and Daylight.
- When I release an update, WordPress shows it under Dashboard > Updates.
It needs WordPress 6.4 or later and PHP 8.0 or later. The demo is the quickest way to see it. When you’re ready, get the free download and follow the setup help.
Beta testers wanted: SA Pro Playlist Creator
In October I mentioned a new playlist program. Its final name is SA Pro Playlist Creator, and it’s ready for real stations to try.
You ask for a playlist in plain English, something like “a three-hour playlist of classic rock, only songs that made the Billboard top 20”, and it builds one from your own library. It reads your music straight from SAM Broadcaster or PlayoutONE, keeps your artist and album separation, and stays inside the US DMCA webcasting limits. It can also check each song’s real release year and genre against MusicBrainz, Billboard, Discogs and other sources. A change only counts when two sources agree, and you review every one before it’s saved.
I’m looking for 10 stations that:
- have been on the air for at least 2 years, with a regular schedule
- have a station website
- run SAM Broadcaster or PlayoutONE on Windows 10 or 11
- have at least 1,000 songs (any genre, any audience size)
What I’m asking: build and air at least one playlist a day for about 6 weeks, send me a short comment each week, and at the end fill in a short survey and write a testimonial for the website. In return you get a free lifetime Pro license and a real say in what gets built next.
One honest note: this is beta software, and it can write to your playout database. It always makes a backup first, but please keep your own backup too.
The application takes about 3 minutes: details and application. There’s also a printable PDF.
Know a station that fits?
If you know a station that would be a good beta tester, please send them this page. And if you have a question about either program, sign up below or get in touch. I read every message myself.
Jim McElhiney
Station Admin