Songfacts® and Broadcast Radio - integrating them onto your website and into your Studio Workflow

The latest feature from Broadcast Radio can really make your station stand out from the competition

As you may have just seen from the Myriad v6.2.1 release post (https://www.facebook.com/.../permalink/6674476342616356), we are really excited about bringing Songfacts® to the Broadcast Radio platform and to Myriad v6.

The Songfacts service is an incredible resource for people interested in the stories behind the songs and artists, which naturally includes radio broadcasters - you can see the full Songfacts site at www.songfacts.com

Following a suggestion from a user to look into whether we could display Songfacts in Myriad, we took a look and LOVED what we saw - so much so that we've now officially partnered with the team at Songfacts so we can show facts not only on our Broadcast.Radio web players, but ALSO directly inside Myriad v6 in the studio.

The team at Songfacts believe this is actually the very first time this information has ever been shown in a radio studio within the playout system and the founder of Songfacts (Carl Wiser) even commented that he wishes HE'D had a resource like this in the studio back when he was on air - which is a pretty amazing testament!

So what does it do, and how do you use it?

Broadcast.Radio Web player

First off, this is a service that we are making available for free to anyone who has a streaming subscription with us on our broadcast.radio streaming platform.

The great news is that you don't even need to be running Myriad v6 to use it on the web player - the facts will appear as long as whatever playout system you ARE using, is sending now playing information to your broadcast.radio station account.

We're covering all the use and rights costs of using the Songfacts data as part of our deal with Songfacts, so as long as you have a streaming subscription with us, then you're entitled to show the data on your player, and ALSO in SmartInfo with Myriad v6 in the studio itself.

On the left is an example of how the Songfacts look on the web player - in this case, our in house test station is playing a song by David Jordan, and the broadcast.radio platform has automatically found some suitable short facts about him and is showing them on the web player in a new "Did you know" section at the bottom of the player.

Every time a new song starts, the platform automatically checks for any suitable facts, and then shows them on the player. If a song doesn't have any facts, then the area is gracefully hidden until the next song with available facts starts. Think of it a bit like the on-screen graphics on tv shows like TOTP2 giving you a bit of trivia about each hit.

Of course, the Songfacts company is US based, so there is a slight bias towards US based facts, but thankfully, as most English speaking countries often share the same music and artists - think international stars like Ed Sheeran etc - then you will find a surprisingly high number of facts even for non US artists.

If you already have a streaming subscription then you just need to edit your Player settings via https://my.broadcast.radio/station/x/options/style/player and turn on the new option to "Show a Songfact about the song" and within a few moments you'll have live facts appearing on your player.

If you don't already have streaming with us, then you can now sign up for it directly from the website - if you have a broadcast.radio account (and you probably do if you have any other services like Myriad Anywhere!) then just head to the Manage Subscriptions section and you can add streaming there, but if you have never had a broadcast.radio account before, just go to https://my.broadcast.radio/product/streaming and you can sign up from there.

All new streaming services get Songfacts enabled by default, but it's a simple matter to turn it off using the above option if you don't feel it suits your station.

Important note: You don't actually have to stream your live stream WITH us - if you are already streaming with someone else and don't want to change, then you can take out the streaming subscription to get access to the Player, but then actually enter the streaming URL for your existing streaming company and the player will then happily play from there instead. Your streaming server will be there waiting for you if you ever want to look at changing platforms - and it may well be worth looking at changing as our streaming service offers more than a few benefits over many of the other platforms out there.

MYRIAD PLAYOUT INTEGRATION

The next incredibly cool part of the partnership is being able to see Songfacts in SmartInfo directly in Myriad in the studio itself. Along with the existing Wikipedia information, this is a real boon to presenters so they can talk knowledgably about the music, rather than ending up with a more bland "that-was-this-is" type link. This information is automatically downloaded and presented to you every time you highlight a Song, so it's incredibly easy to get talking points for your show.

To enable Songfacts in SmartInfo, you will need to have downloaded and installed the latest v6.2 beta version, and you will immediately see the new Songfacts pane in the middle, along with a prompt to enter your broadcast.radio API key into Station Settings. If you don't have your key already, you can get it from the Playout Integration tab in your broadcast.radio account from https://my.broadcast.radio/station/x/options/playout

Copy the API key from that web page, then in Myriad Playout, go to the Station menu, then click Station Settings, then on the Connections tab where you will see where to paste your key into. It should immediately then show the Station name underneath. If you don't see your station name, then please check you've copied all of the key with no extra spaces.

Click OK, then select a song and you should see a fact straight away. If the item doesn't have a Song fact, you can then instead select to see Artists Facts instead using the button in the top right corner. You can see an example of a Songfact below.

If you don't have a streaming subscription from Broadcast.Radio for your station, then Myriad will show a message that it can't use it get Songfacts, so you will then need to follow the steps above to get a streaming service enabled.

Finally, if you don't want Songfacts showing for your station in the studio - although why wouldn't you  - then you can turn it off on the same Connections tab in Station Settings. You may then need to restart for that pane to then be totally hidden.

Don't forget that broadcast.radio API keys are per-station, and that Songfacts is also licensed per-station, so if you have multiple different stations in the same database you will need to enter each Station's API key to enable it for those stations. But as before, if you have a streaming service for those already, then you are good to go.