With summer in our rear-view mirror, we'd like to introduce some of the improvements we've made to Radio Mast over the summer. We're constantly rolling out new features based on feedback from broadcasters, and this summer was no different.
Without further ado, here's recently what's new at Radio Mast:
Streaming Network
- A minor revamp of the Radio Stations Dashboard now makes it easy to see your live listener counts across multiple stations.
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Smoother Transitions: Broadcasters can now kick encoders that are already connected to a stream, by using Rocket Broadcaster 1.3.22 or greater. This allows DJs to seamlessly takeover a stream from another DJs without dropping listeners.
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Custom Listener Authentication:
- Listening Time Accounting - We've expanded Listener Authentication Webhook to include the cumulative time
a listener has tuned in for over the last 24 hours and 7 days. This allows broadcasters
to implement robust, dynamic listening limits on free streams, to help drive listeners toward
subscription streams. For more information, see the
listener-duration-1dayandlistener-duration-7dayPOST parameters here. - Redirection - Listeners can be redirected to a different URL when denying them access to a stream. This can be used to play an announcement or call to action asking the listener to subscribe to access the stream.
- Listening Time Accounting - We've expanded Listener Authentication Webhook to include the cumulative time
a listener has tuned in for over the last 24 hours and 7 days. This allows broadcasters
to implement robust, dynamic listening limits on free streams, to help drive listeners toward
subscription streams. For more information, see the
- New region: Los Angeles - Earlier this year we expanded the Streaming Network with new servers in Los Angeles, to better serve broadcasters and listeners on the West coast.
Read more about the Radio Mast Streaming Network - hosting for online streaming audio.
Cloud Transcoder
- A new Cloud Transcoder region is available in London, UK.
- Improved compatibility for transcoding Shoutcast streams.
- Transcoder latency has been lowered and is more consistent over time.
Read more about Radio Mast Cloud Transcoder.
Analytics
- Analytics now has Referrer tracking, which allows you to see which websites or apps referred your listener traffic. You can even use this data in second-level breakdowns. For example, you can see top referrers in New York City.
- TLH Graph - For better visualization of your listener hours, TLH can now be graphed in Analytics in addition to Listener Sessions.
- Minimum listener duration cutoff - You can now choose to exclude short listener sessions to help improve the accuracy of your listener statistics.
- CPB Reports - Analytics can now generate reports in the style used by Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
- An API for Analytics is now available, allowing you to programmatically integrate your listener statistics into other applications.
Read more about Radio Mast Analytics.
In addition these improvements, our engineering team has been hard at work on a wide variety of infrastructure projects to keep your streams running smoothly. We've deployed over a dozen software updates to our streaming servers and undertaken a significant expansion in capacity this year. We are also working on new streaming protocols and working to provide even lower latency streaming.
Stay tuned!