Internet Radio Curators

Internet Radio Curators

Become a Curator

Roon's Internet Radio Directory is maintained by our Curation Team, made up of Roon users like you! If you're interested in signing up, please fill out this form and you'll hear from us soon!

Curation Tool

Curators can access the tool here, logging in with your Roon account. If you have issues, us know on Community!

Adding Stations

Stations and Streams 

The quality of our Radio Directory will depend on how orderly the data we present is, so it’s going to be critical that we all understand these terms:
  1. Stream - a stream is a URL that plays the content in a given format. Every stream for a given station should be grouped into a single station 
  2. Station - each station in the directory has:
    1. A name and other metadata (like location, description, etc) 
    2. One or more streams 
    3. Plays the same content at all times. So, the high res and low res streams of BBC Radio 1 are the same stations, but BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4 are different stations because they play different content 
In order to present this data in a comprehensible way, we will need to ensure:
  1. Each station is only published once -- there should only be one BBC Radio 1, one BBC Radio 2, one WFMU, etc
  2. All streams for a given station are added - the system will make sure Roon always plays the highest quality stream available for your territory 
The system is also capable of understanding when a stream is “geo-blocked”, meaning it is only available in some countries and blocked for playback elsewhere. For example, the BBC offers higher-resolution streams within the UK, which should be available to Roon customers in those countries. 

Hierarchy Overview 

Our internet radio directory needs to be easy to browse, so users can easily find what they’re looking for. When user’s first open the Radio Directory, they’ll see a few top level categories, like Music, News, Talk, and Sports, along with popular and local stations.

Every station will need to appear in at least one category so users can browse to it, but stations can also be “tagged” with multiple categories. This means a station like NPR or BBC could appear under both “News” and “Talk”. 

The hierarchy of categories under “Music” will initially match the current set of genres in Roon, as we may want to create links in the future between the music in your library and stations that play similar content. 

Category Hierarchy

  1. Music 
    1. Decades - Stations in this category should be explicitly about a decade, and not just a station that plays music from a decade
      1. 1950s
      2. 1960s
      3. 1970s
      4. 1980s
      5. 1990s
      6. 2000s
    2. Eclectic - This is a catch all for stations that don’t play a single genre, so you will want to use this category for “free form” radio, college radio, etc
    3. Avant-Garde
    4. Blues
    5. Children's
    6. Classical
    7. Country
    8. Easy Listening
    9. Electronic
      1. Ambient
      2. Chillout
      3. Dance
      4. Downtempo
      5. Drum 'N' Bass
      6. House
      7. Lounge
      8. Techno
      9. Trancehat 
    10. Folk
    11. Holiday
    12. International
    13. Jazz
    14. Latin
    15. New Age
    16. Pop/Rock
      1. Pop
      2. Hard Rock 
      3. Folk
      4. Metal
      5. Alternative/Indie Rock
    17. R&B
    18. Rap
    19. Reggae
    20. Religious
    21. Stage & Screen
    22. Vocal
  2. News & Talk
    1. Arts & Entertainment
    2. Business
    3. Science & Technology
    4. For kids
    5. Comedy
    6. US News
    7. Europe 
    8. Asia 
    9. Public Radio
    10. Talk
      1. Political Talk
      2. Music Talk
      3. Religion & Spirituality
      4. Sci-Fi
      5. Television
      6. Video Games
      7. World Talk
  3. Sports 
    1. MLB
    2. NBA
    3. NHL
    4. NFL
    5. Football 
    6. International 
    7. College Sports 

Station Information

  1. Name - every station must include a name - please make sure the name is complete, distinct, and matches what users would expect to see (for example Soma.FM Covers, not just “Covers”)
    1. Please make sure to use the most recognizable name for a station -- some groups of stations include the name of the group in the station, like the BBC station “BBC Radio 4”, whereas other stations don’t, like the NPR station “WNYC”
  2. Website - please try to track down a website for every station added 
  3. Description - Every station should include a descriptive blurb about the type of content the station plays. It should:
    1. Be descriptive -- this is not advertising 
    2. 100-200 words 
    3. Should be in English, unless the station does not broadcast English 
    4. May include paragraph breaks and special characters 
  4. Image - every station should have an image that is:
    1. Preferably at least 512px x 512px (or highest available)
    2. Preferably in PNG format
    3. Includes the station logo on a white or transparent background (see examples at right)
  5. Has Explicit Content - While most commercial stations in the US will not include explicit content if you’re unsure please opt for No
  6. Has Advertising - if the station includes any advertisements (as opposed to sponsored content), please mark it yes
  7. Is Published - Determines visibility in Roon

Location

  1. Terrestrial Radio Frequency and Band - for stations that broadcast over the airwaves, make sure this field is populated, as people may search for their favorite stations this way 
  2. Location (name) - Each stations location will be displayed in-app, so make sure to include a clear city and country for all stations. 
    1. For consistency, try to use English spellings for locations (ie “Bruges”, not “Brugge”)
    2. For most stations, you’ll want to use the format: City, Country. Unless you think an international audience will need further details, this will suffice. For example:
      1. London, England 
      2. Paris, France 
  3. In some cases, an additional field, like state or province, might be required for clarity. For these stations, use the format: City, State/Province, Country. For example:
    1. Portland, Maine, USA 
    2. Austin, Texas, USA 
  1. Latitude\Longitude - As you browse the directory, Roon will show you nearby stations, so it’s critical that this data is populated. One way to find a station’s coordinates is to

    2. Locate the station on Google Maps
    3. Right Click on the map
    4. Select “What’s Here”
    5. Click the latitude and longitude at the bottom of the window and a tab will pop up with the correct string 
    6. Copy/Paste into the Curation Tool - format must be 51.512297, -0.136661
    7. Make sure you’re using the right coordinates format:


Tags 

  1. Languages Spoken - Stations should be tagged with at least one language, as we may provide filtering functionality in the future that would allow users to browse only stations in their language 
  2. Languages should always use ISO language names as listed here (for example, use “German” not “Deutsch”)
  3. Keywords - Keywords can be used for descriptive information like subgenres or for kinds of stations (like “Public Radio”, or “BBC”). Keywords will allow for cross-referencing (ie, all NPR stations), more granular genre tagging (“Indie” has not traditionally been a genre in Roon, for example), and more.
  4. Categories - This is probably the most important field, as it determines which category (or categories) the station will appear under. In general, you should:
    1. Tag the station with all relevant categories (for example a station might be “Blues” and “Jazz”, or “News” and “Talk”)
    2. Not tag music stations with “top-level” Music category

Some examples of good keywords:
  1. BBC - for all the different BBC stations 
  2. Public Radio - for all public radio 
  3. Absolute Radio - a company that has a number of streams across many genres
  4. Classic Rock - a sub-genre that doesn’t exist in Roon’s hierarchy 
  5. Funk - a sub-genre that does exist in Roon’s main hierarchy but doesn’t appear in the Radio hierarchy right now 
Some examples of bad keywords:
  1. USA - this should be covered by location 
  2. French - should be covered by language field 
  3. High Res - should be covered by stream info 

Adding Streams

 

Once you’ve saved the station information, you’ll need to add one or more streams.   It’s important that for every station you ensure we find the highest quality stream.

How To Add A Stream

Once you’re sure you’ve found the highest quality streams for a given station, you can begin adding streams.  To manually add a stream, click “Add Stream and paste a stream URL that streams in MP3, AAC, or FLAC.
Please don’t add TuneIn links. If you find a station that is only available via TuneIn, let us know in the Radio Curation section of Community.  

Stream Testing

Once you’ve picked a stream to add, paste it into the input box -- the curation tool will start by testing the stream to ensure it works, and to detect format information.   You’ll see a message as the stream is tested:



Once the test is completed, format information will generally be filled in automatically.  In some cases, you will need to manually fill in the bit rate, which can be done by playing the stream through Roon and checking Signal Path. 

Geo Blocked Streams

If the stream you are adding is only available in some countries, you will need to add that information to the directory.  Please make sure to use the 2-letter ISO code listed in the “Code” column here:

Once you’re sure the stream is properly tagged, make sure it’s published and add it to the station.
The stream tester runs in the US and so can only test streams that are available there. In this case, go ahead and add an untested stream, set the stream to unpublished, and let us know in the Radio Curation section of Community.

Radio Curator Discussion

Have a question or idea? Want to discuss something with other curators? Visit the private Radio Curation section of the Community Site. 

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