MetaRadio is becoming more and more popular for broadcasters as they seek to send metadata to all sorts of broadcast systems. It’s been around a year since our last official update, and we’ve been working really hard behind the scenes for the last twelve months on new features and refinements for our much-loved product.

Today, we announce MetaRadio 1.7. This update for MetaRadio Standalone and MetaRadio WordPress is a free update for all existing licensees. We highly recommend updating. You can download this update by entering your email address into the “Reissue License & Download” tool.

New Branding

We are rolling out new branding across our products. The new MetaRadio brand is now in use on our website, but the product itself hasn’t been updated. We’ll update the icons in MetaRadio 2 (see the bottom of this post for details).

Old branding:

New branding:

New Features

We now support a whole range of new automation systems and other data inputs:

  • OmniPlayer
    Simply point MetaRadio at OmniPlayer’s XML file and away you go!
  • PlayIt Live
    Use our PlayIt Live template to send song data to MetaRadio via file.
  • MegaSeg
    Use our MegaSeg template to send song data to MetaRadio via TCP.
  • WestwoodOne Satellite
    MetaRadio now accepts the now-playing data from your Westwood One satellite receiver. We can accept this data via UDP, as either DPS= or comma formatted data. If you want to merge your WestwoodOne data with your own automation system data on a schedule, please get in touch – we have features on the way to assist with this.
  • NPR Composer 2
    If you are a NPR station and accept program guide data or song data via their NPR Composer 2 API, we now have integrations for you. Please contact our support team for assistance setting this up.
  • Myriad OCP
    We now officially support receiving data from Myriad’s OCP. Simply use our Myriad template to send song data to MetaRadio via TCP.
  • Generic Text Files
    For systems that don’t support well-formed XML data, we now support a basic Text File format. Contact support if you want to use this format. 

We also support some new output formats:

  • StreamS
  • SecureNet DCS
  • Triton Digital Streaming (Icecast)
  • HTTP Output: Custom Fields
    We now have two custom fields, which accept standard MetaRadio merge fields.
  • Telos ZIPStream: Triton STWCUE Format
  • RadioPlayer Version 2 API
    We’ve added support for the new RadioPlayer Global V2 API. Switch to this new version as it becomes available in your region.

In addition to all these new features, we have also made some changes to how our HD Radio output works. You now no longer need to find any third party tools or binaries to send title & artist data to your HD Radio system. Simply input the IP Address & UDP Port Number of your Exciter/Importer, and MetaRadio will send title/artist data straight through.

Enhancements and Fixes

The following are the main enhancements to MetaRadio Standalone:

  • Extensive Unicode enhancements across all outputs
  • Allow multiple ‘now playing’ messages in a rotation for many output formats
  • Fraunhofer Content Server – Support legacy HTTP-Method requests
  • Jazler: Work around situations where Jazer isn’t supplying a unique ID for each track
  • Telos ZipStream: Allow sending the title & artist in separate fields
  • Plus dozens of other smaller bug fixes to individual systems

The following are the main enhancements to MetaRadio WordPress:

  • PHP 8 fixes
  • Security hardening
  • Fix some date/time parsing errors
  • Allow highlighting the active show in the program grid
  • Remove unnecessary admin notices from most Admin screens
  • Program grid styling fixes
  • ACRCloud: Allow using four dashes (—-) as the credential delimiter when sending directly to WordPress

What’s coming next for MetaRadio?

MetaRadio was first released in 2016, and the application has come a long way since then. Most of our enhancements have been driven by our loyal and enthusiastic customers – so if that’s you, thank you for all you’ve contributed.

Work on MetaRadio 2 has been underway for some time now. While the final feature list is still being refined, some new features to expect include:

  • New configuration app, including a significantly enhanced setup experience, and easier ways to view, manage, and use your metadata.
  • Ability to merge metadata between multiple systems – for example, taking an external program guide feed and sending it to RDS alongside your Now Playing song data, or merging Satellite now playing data during select hours, and local automation system data during other hours.
  • System scheduling, allowing you to enable/disable inputs at set times during the week.
  • New options to include sponsor/advertiser messages in between song messages.

If you are a MetaRadio user, or even if you haven’t started using it yet, now is the perfect time to get in touch with your suggestions, requests and feedback. We’ll also be looking for beta testers closer to the release date. While we can’t provide a firm release date just yet, we’re currently aiming for Q3 2023 (around July to September 2023).

How to Update

This upgrade is free for all existing licensees.

Download the latest version from the downloads page. Simply enter your email address, and you will be sent a download link with the latest version.

You can upgrade your existing installation of MetaRadio Standalone simply by running the installation wizard. Please ensure you take a backup before you upgrade. In the event you run into issues, please feel free to re-install the older version, and then contact us for support.

Upgrades to the WordPress plugin are handled in-app. Simply check the ‘updates’ screen.

Make sure you backup everything before upgrading.