Getting the station ready before term starts
Most of the work happens once, before any student touches a microphone. If you have never set up internet radio before, our step-by-step guide to starting a station walks through encoders and listen links. Here is the order that works for a school:
- A staff member opens the account and owns the station. The main source password stays with them.
- Create a DJ login for each presenter. Each one carries its own hours on air.
- Put the shows on the Schedule tab with each show's name, presenter, image and time slot.
- On Premium or Platinum, build a clock for Auto DJ so music plays between shows.
- Switch on the off-air email alert so you hear if the station drops.
- Turn on the station page and embed the player on the school website.
Does every student need the station password?
No, and that is the point of DJ logins. A shared password gets passed around and outlives the students who knew it. With a login per presenter, you know whose account was used, you can set when each one may go on air, and when someone graduates you close their login without resetting anyone else's. Premium includes 5 DJ logins and Platinum 20; if your club has more presenters than that, give a login to each show and let its crew share it.
Students can go live from the browser on Premium and Platinum, so school computers need no extra software. If your studio already has a mixing desk and a PC, any Icecast or SHOUTcast encoder works too: the server, port and mount to type in are listed on the Go live tab. On Platinum, you can invite a guest such as a visiting coach on air with a link.
Keeping live student shows safe
Live radio with teenagers or new presenters needs three things: limits on who can broadcast, a fast way to stop a show, and a record of what was said. Premium and Platinum give you all three.
- A kill switch. Pull any presenter off air from your radio panel whenever you need to. Auto DJ takes the air back by itself.
- A recording of every live show. It goes straight to your library, so you can listen back after a complaint or for feedback sessions.
- A silence alert. If a show goes quiet because a student walked off or a laptop slept, you find out.
- A clean mode on Platinum. Tag explicit songs and switch on clean mode to keep them out of what Auto DJ plays.
Clean mode only covers the music Auto DJ plays. Words spoken live are covered by your school's own on-air rules and supervision, and listening back to the saved show lets you check them.
Filling the hours when nobody is presenting
A student station is busy at lunchtime and after classes, then empty overnight and through the holidays. With Premium or Platinum, your hour clocks run on Auto DJ whenever no presenter is connected and steps aside the moment one goes live. A week check warns you about empty slots or overlapping shows before you save. If you want the automation side in depth, see how a station plays all night without anyone at the desk.
One US licence rule matters for your line-up: the statutory licence does not allow a station to announce in advance the titles of specific songs it will play. Publish show names and hosts. Saying an artist will feature at some unspecified time is allowed.
The music licence a US school can use
Playing commercial music online in the US takes two kinds of permission. The recordings are licensed through SoundExchange. The songs themselves (the notes and lyrics) are licensed separately: SoundExchange points educational webcasters to Global Music Rights, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for those. Hosting includes neither; our guide to royalty fees explains where to begin.
For the recordings, US copyright regulations (37 CFR 380 Subpart C) set out a Noncommercial Educational Webcaster category. You qualify if your stream is noncommercial, run by an accredited US school, college or university, or affiliated with one and officially sanctioned by it, staffed substantially by its enrolled students, and not a public broadcaster qualified for CPB funding. Instead of per-song royalties, you pay a fixed minimum fee each year for each channel. The regulation sets that amount year by year from 2026 to 2030, rising a little each time; SoundExchange's page for educational webcasters has the current figure and the forms.
- The fee covers a channel's listening up to 160,000 aggregate tuning hours (ATH) each month. One listener for one hour is one ATH, and listeners outside the US are not counted.
- If no channel went over 80,000 ATH in more than one month last year, and you don't expect any channel to pass 80,000 ATH in any month this year, you can pay a small yearly Proxy Fee with your minimum fee instead of filing usage reports.
- Pass 160,000 ATH during any month and that month, plus the rest of the year, moves to the higher Noncommercial Webcaster rates, with your minimum fee credited.
- Someone authorised by the school signs the statement of account.
Your panel keeps the paperwork on every plan: the full airplay log sealed day by day, royalty reports in the SoundExchange layout, and a breakdown of listening per country, so you can see what share of your audience is in the US.
Turning shows into an archive or a podcast
Because Premium and Platinum save each live show to your library, you build an archive without anyone remembering to press record. A saved show becomes a podcast episode in one click, with a feed for Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That works well for interviews, school news, sports and debates.
Be careful with music shows. According to SoundExchange, downloads, podcasts among them, fall outside its statutory licence. Publish the talk parts, or get permission from the rights holders for the music.
Putting the station on your school website
On every plan, the free one included, your station can have a public page with its logo, description, links, the live player and your weekly line-up showing what is on now and next. You can also ask to appear in the radio guide; Primcast staff approve each listing first. The player fits any space on your site, from a slim bar to a full card, and because the listen link uses https://, a secure school website can play it without complaint. On Premium and Platinum you can also publish the station as its own iPhone and Android app.
Picking the plan for your station
- Free suits live commentary of school games and little else: live only at 32 Kbps, room for 1,000 people listening together, and no DJ logins, Auto DJ or recordings.
- Premium suits a radio club: 5 DJ logins, Auto DJ with 20 GB for music, browser studio, saved shows and the kill switch, at 128 Kbps.
- Platinum suits a college station with a big roster: 20 DJ logins, 100 GB, clean mode, guest links and 320 Kbps.
Worth knowing up front: this is internet radio, not an FM licence, and an audience above 5,000 simultaneous listeners is quoted separately. Prices and the full feature list are on our radio hosting plans page, and Premium and Platinum come with a 14-day free trial.
Questions people ask
- How do I stop a student's show if something goes wrong on air?
- Use the kill switch in the radio panel on Premium or Platinum. It drops the live DJ at once and Auto DJ carries on. The show was being saved to your library, so you can listen back to what happened.
- What does the SoundExchange fee for a school station cover?
- An eligible noncommercial educational webcaster pays one fixed minimum per channel or station each year, which covers up to 160,000 listening hours a month from US listeners. A small station that stayed under 80,000 ATH last year, apart from at most one month, and expects to stay under it every month this year can add a modest Proxy Fee to skip usage reports. The current amounts are on SoundExchange's site, and song licences from ASCAP, BMI and the others are a separate cost.
- What if we have more presenters than DJ logins?
- Give each show its own login and let that show's team share it, or move to Platinum, which has 20. On Platinum, you can also invite one-off guests on air with a link.
- Can our music shows go out as podcasts?
- The webcasting licence will not cover that: SoundExchange says podcasts and other downloads sit outside it. Talk shows are fine to publish from your saved recordings. For music, you would need permission from the rights holders.
- Can students broadcast from home?
- Yes, on Premium and Platinum the studio runs in a web browser, so a student only needs a microphone and their DJ login. Their account's hours on air still apply, and the show is saved like any other.