What goes into a station
Four pieces, and the only one that has to come from you is the first: your sound. Here is the whole picture before we go through each part.
- Your sound. A microphone and a mixer for live shows, or a folder of music for the hours when nobody is talking.
- An encoder. A program, or a small box, that squeezes your sound into a stream and sends it out. Icecast's documentation calls it the source client.
- A streaming server. Icecast or SHOUTcast. Listeners connect here, never to your computer.
- A way in for listeners. A link, a player on your website, and listings in the radio apps people already use.
Picking an encoder you will be happy with
If you are going live from a computer, BUTT is a sensible first choice. It works on Windows, macOS and Linux, talks to both Icecast and SHOUTcast servers, sends MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Opus or FLAC, and can record your show to a file while it broadcasts, so you have a copy for later.
Prefer not to leave a computer running in the studio? A hardware encoder plugs into your mixer and streams on its own. And on our Premium and Platinum plans you can skip the encoder altogether and go live from a studio in your web browser.
Will your home internet cope?
Not if listeners connect to you directly, and that is the whole reason a streaming server exists. Every person listening receives their own copy of your stream, so the traffic grows with the audience: multiply your bitrate by the number of listeners.
| Your stream | 50 people | 500 people | 2,500 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 kbit/s, fine for talk | 1.6 Mbit/s | 16 Mbit/s | 80 Mbit/s |
| 128 kbit/s, good for music | 6.4 Mbit/s | 64 Mbit/s | 320 Mbit/s |
| 320 kbit/s, highest quality | 16 Mbit/s | 160 Mbit/s | 800 Mbit/s |
With a server in the middle, your connection only ever carries one copy, whether ten or ten thousand are tuned in. The server, sitting in a data centre, does the copying.
Staying on air when you are not
A live-only station falls silent the moment you stop. That is the job of an Auto DJ: it plays your music library to a plan whenever nobody is broadcasting, and steps aside as soon as a presenter connects.
Ours runs on our servers rather than your PC, so nothing at home has to stay switched on. You draw an hour once (songs, a jingle, the station ID at the top of the hour), place those hours across the week, and the Auto DJ follows it. It comes with Premium and Platinum; the Free plan carries live shows only, because it has no space for a library.
Paying the people whose music you play
If you play other people's music to US listeners, you usually need two kinds of permission, because every track has two owners: whoever made the recording, and whoever wrote the song.
- The recording: SoundExchange runs the statutory licence for non-interactive webcasters. Before your first broadcast you send the Copyright Royalty Board a form called a Notice of Use; after that you pay and report what you play.
- The song: the licence for the composition comes from the performing rights organisations ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, separately.
The statutory licence comes with rules you need to know before you plan a playlist. Listeners must not be able to choose songs on demand or know in advance exactly when a recording will play. In any three hours, play no more than four tracks by the same artist (three back to back) and no more than three from the same album (two back to back). The artist and title must show as each track plays.
Our hosting does not include a licence, and arranging one stays with you. What we do is keep your paperwork: a downloadable airplay log sealed day by day, royalty reports in SoundExchange-style and ASCAP, BMI and SESAC layouts, and a place for the licences you hold. Our royalty fees page explains where to start.
Helping new listeners find you
Most new listeners will not arrive from your website. They search inside apps and directories, so get your station listed there:
- TuneIn, one of the biggest radio directories. Keep its stream address current, or listeners who find you there hear nothing.
- Radio Browser and Radio Garden, plus the playlist links (.pls, .m3u, .xspf) that older players and car systems open.
- Your own app. On Premium and Platinum, your station gets an iPhone and Android app with CarPlay and Android Auto, published under your own name.
Every plan includes help with those submissions and a check that each directory still plays your current address.
Your first evening on air
- Choose a plan on our radio hosting page. The Free plan carries a live show to up to 1,000 people at once; Premium and Platinum add the Auto DJ, more listeners and better sound.
- Open the Radio section of your dashboard and go to the Go live tab. It shows the server, port, mount point and password your encoder needs.
- Type those into your encoder and connect. Icecast encoders and SHOUTcast encoders both work, on every plan.
- Copy your https:// listen link or the player code. Because the link is secure from day one, it plays inside any website.
- Send in your directory listings, and if you play music in the US, file your Notice of Use before you start playing it.
Your station runs on our own servers in New York or Bucharest, and every plan's bandwidth is unmetered, so a big night is never billed by the gigabyte. Each plan has its own ceiling on listeners at once, and Premium and Platinum also set how many listener hours you can use each month (500,000 and 1.5 million). Those two numbers tell you when to move up. If your audience is spread across continents, Platinum's radio CDN connects each listener to the closest of five cities.
Questions people ask
- Can I run a radio station for free?
- You can start one without a monthly bill: our Free plan is live-only at 32 kbit/s, for up to 1,000 listeners at once. Music licences are a separate cost: our plans keep your airplay records but do not include a licence. Check the radio hosting page for the one-time setup fee.
- Do I need special equipment to broadcast?
- No. A computer, a decent microphone and an encoder program such as BUTT are enough to go live. A mixer helps once you have guests or several sources, and a hardware encoder lets you broadcast without a computer.
- What bitrate should I pick?
- Talk sounds fine at 32 kbit/s. Music usually wants 128 kbit/s, and 320 kbit/s is for listeners who notice the difference. Higher bitrates sound better but multiply the traffic by every listener.
- Do I need a licence if my listeners are in the US?
- If you play music you did not make, almost certainly. The recordings can be covered by SoundExchange's statutory licence: you file a Notice of Use before you start, then pay, report and follow its play rules. The songs themselves are licensed by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. If you are unsure whether your programme needs them, ask a lawyer before you go on air.
- What is the difference between Icecast and SHOUTcast?
- They are two streaming servers that do the same job, each with its own encoder protocol. Our stations accept Icecast and SHOUTcast encoders on every plan, so you can use whichever your encoder speaks.
- Can more than one presenter use the station?
- Yes. Premium includes 5 DJ logins and Platinum 20, each with its own hours on air. When a DJ connects they take over from the Auto DJ, and the music picks up again when they leave.