Uploading shows to the website

It is Phoenix FM policy to host all "listen again" shows and podcasts on our main server, and to not use third party websites such as Mixcloud and Anchor.

Before you start

You will need a "key" for your show - this is a single number or word which acts as a combined username/password and identifies you and your show.

I can allocate you one or you can choose the number/word and let me know what it is, if you're happy to pick one that you can remember easily which isn't also a risk to your other security/passwords.

How to upload

There are three screens - a key screen, a details screen and a confirm screen.

1. KEY SCREEN

Go to https://phoenixfm.com/uploader/key.php and enter your key.

You can just press enter - there's no submit button. Once you've done that you come to the

2. DETAILS SCREEN

You need to add some information here:

• Podcast Title (eg "Resurrection - show 78")
• Podcast Description (eg "My guest this week is Gary Smith from local band The Revolvers". This is OPTIONAL at the moment)
• Broadcast Date (if you hover over the box you'll see a down arrow, click on that and choose a date, or just enter it as dd/mm/yyyy).

Then click on Choose File and upload ANY file, a song, a show, whatever.

You can also click and drag your file onto the upload button - that also works.

Once you've entered everything click Upload audio file and wait a few minutes. When it's done you'll get a ...

3. SUCCESS SCREEN

You'll get a message like this:

Success!
You uploaded the following file:
Show: Synth City
Episode: Save us Bond
Filename: SC17320mp3.mp3

EMBED CODE: To display the player on your blog page, you need to include the following line
[pod id=51]

Please make sure you enter in TEXT and not VISUAL mode. (Ask Paul if confused by this).

The important part is the [pod id=51] (or whatever number) This is the new embed code, which will embed a player into your webpage.

Just make sure you do it in TEXT and not VISUAL mode.

It creates a player which is not quite as pretty as the other ones, but it is full width and responsive which listeners are going to find more useful.

Error messages

The form uses various Javascript validations and you might get an error message. If you do, click OK and you may find the show uploads fine. If it doesn't please report it back to me. The main objective is to get your shows on the website and we can do that whatever happens.

Eventually I will do more with this!

The idea of this uploader is it uploads the files to our server but also adds the show info into a database, which I can then use to create a (better) custom player, simpler embed code, RSS feeds, dedicated podcast page etc. (all in time!)

It's working fine for me but it is still a bit of a work in progress. I can fix any problems, so let me know how you get on with it.

Why don't we use Mixcloud or Anchor any more?

Mixcloud have introduced a policy where there are restrictions on listeners unless those listeners pay to subscribe. These include rewinding shows and listening to a certain number per week, and we've decided we don't want our listeners to use something as restrictive as that.

Anchor have backflipped on our agreed licensing conditions, and now any show uploaded to Anchor which has music licensed to Universal Music Group (that's pretty much every show) runs the risk of being removed and the account deleted without appeal - even though we are legally licensed to publish podcasts on third-party servers.