How to Choose the Best Radio Automation Software

Before examining the features of any digital audio broadcasting software, it's essential to assess your station's specific needs. Factors to consider include the scale of your operations, the intricacies of your programming, and your future plans for radio distribution.

Whether you’re a large broadcast organization or a smaller, community-focused station, below are some more suggestions to help guide your decision.

Catalog Control and Organization

The ability to efficiently manage your station’s catalog of music, ads, and other content is crucial. Look for software that offers robust database management tools, allowing multiple users to access, update, and manage extensive media libraries seamlessly.

Scheduling and Playout

The core functionality of any radio automation software lies in its scheduling and playout capabilities. This is especially important for busy stations managing multiple shows.

Opt for a system that simplifies the creation and management of playlists, and allows for intuitive scheduling of content, adverts, and other broadcast elements.

Automation features for live and pre-recorded broadcasting can significantly enhance your station's operational efficiency.

Production Capabilities

High-quality content production is at the heart of successful radio broadcasting. Seek out software that provides comprehensive production tools, including options for ingesting content from various sources, advanced editing capabilities, and efficient recording solutions.

Digital Radio Distribution

These days, your station's online presence is as crucial as its on-air broadcasting. Ensure the software you choose supports internet streaming, letting you function as an internet radio station as well. It should also enable distribution across social media.

Integration and Flexibility

The best radio automation software should seamlessly integrate with third-party systems and offer flexible workflow management options. This adaptability allows for a more tailored approach to broadcasting, ensuring that the software can grow and evolve alongside your station.

Usability

Given the fast-paced nature of broadcasting, usability is a key consideration. After all, the last thing any broadcaster needs while working under pressure is a clunky, complex interface with unclear navigation.

A user-friendly interface that simplifies complex processes can greatly enhance your team’s productivity and allow them to focus on the tasks at-hand, preventing mistakes.

Our software, OmniPlayer, is a state-of-the-art solution designed to meet the varied demands of radio broadcasting. Founded on 30+ years of expertise, it offers a comprehensive set of tools that streamline the creation, broadcasting, and publishing of content.

Catalog Management

OmniPlayer gives you the ultimate control over your catalog thanks to its Database Explorer. This powerful tool is the main data supplier for your operations and can be used on multiple workstations. As such, your team can select, enter, work on, or update any title in your catalog efficiently - a crucial feature for stations with extensive libraries.

What’s more, you’re not limited to the default fields that come with the system. Its custom field editor lets you create new forms and fields, giving you the flexibility to manage your operations as you see fit.

In addition, it offers a Multi Basebrower option, letting you share resources among sites. Users can transfer titles and audio files between local and remote databases when running OmniPlayer on two or more sites at a time – and it’s as easy as dragging and dropping.

Production Tools

OmniPlayer equips your team with everything needed for high-quality production.

Ingestion

Users can ingest from multiple sources including CDs, live programs, tapes, distant phone calls from reporters and listeners, and more. The audio is then immediately ready for editing with SmartTrack, our advanced, user-friendly, multitrack editing tool.

Editing

SmartTrack has every functionality a professional radio station needs – plus, you can edit while you’re still recording audio. Taking things a step further, multiple users can edit the same audio simultaneously, driving efficiency.

Speech-to-Text Functionality

This enables automatic transcription – in multiple languages thanks to its connection with third-party tools including Google and Zoom Media.

Recording

When it comes to recording, several users can record at the same time and the titles of the created files are immediately saved to the database. (Of course, you can save files to other locations if needed.)

We also offer powerful voice tracking tools that enable DJs to create a voice track of a whole show in a few clicks.

Scheduling

Create complete schedules weeks or months in advance with our Log Editor. It makes it easy to organize all your content and automate broadcasting, including where items are linked and not linked, as well as adverts, and so on. It also has live assist capabilities.  

What makes it so efficient? Well, you have customizable templates available for your schedule blocks, which are easy to access when you want to set up a new schedule.

Playout

OmniPlayer has a range of helpful features for streamlining playout:

• Integrated playout client: This offers tools for managing music rundowns, commercial blocks, and off-air editing with a user-friendly interface.
• Custom countdowns and clocks: Each channel features its own countdowns and real-time clocks for various segments like intro time, program starts, and commercial breaks.
• Live assist and automated broadcasting: OmniPlayer supports both live assist and fully automated broadcasting, allowing for easy drag-and-drop modification of playlists and seamless on-air transitions.
• Drag-and-drop playlist creation: Users can create playlists by dragging and dropping titles or using pre-scheduled programs, enhancing flexibility and ease of use.
• Multi-platform broadcasting: Supports broadcasting across multiple platforms including the web, satellite, and DAB+, with additional modules for expanded distribution.
• Audio sequencing: This facilitates quick preparation of sequences between audio titles, with customizable settings for beginnings, ends, volume, and audio ducking, ensuring smooth transitions.

Digital Distribution

OmniPlayer supports multichannel publishing thanks to its API. This allows you to extend your reach across digital platforms with ease, ensuring your content connects with listeners wherever they are.

This includes platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, MixCloud, and various podcast channels. In fact, we offer an intelligent Social Media Workflow Engine, dedicated to improving efficiency across such channels.

However, the distribution possibilities don’t stop at audio. These days, radio is more than just audio, which is why OmniPlayer lets you engage your audience with live video from the studio.

You can also sync music video clips to the broadcasted audio from OmniPlayer, as well as news clips for radio news stations. DJs can also simultaneously broadcast on radio and TV from the same user interface.

Intuitive Interface

OmniPlayer boasts a user-friendly interface that demystifies complex processes, allowing your team to focus on creating and broadcasting content that your audience seeks. As you can tell from what we've said above, usability does not come at the expense of functionality; even the most sophisticated broadcasting tasks are easy to manage with our system.

Integrations

A web service API is also available, helping enterprise customers connect OmniPlayer with other in-house systems. The software also supports integration with camera switching systems, mixing consoles and more, and you can import playlists from third party scheduling software such as Powergold and Music Master.