Submit your station to itunes..

[broadcastingworld]

Submit via email to.. itunesradio@apple.com

In order to better serve our radio partners, we are implementing a new system. As you can imagine, our radio partners are important to us but a small part of what iTunes does overall, so our resources are very limited to deal with the hundreds of emails we receive each day. In order to better serve you, ALL requests must be resubmitted and follow these guidelines. ANY EMAILS THAT DO NOT FOLLOW THESE PROTOCOLS WILL BE DELETED

1) ALL emails must have one of these three subject lines as follows:
Station Submission: (station name) (ex: Station Submission: Cameo's Favorite Tunes.com)
Station Update: (station name exactly as it appears in iTunes)
Other Inquiry: state issue here

2) Each station update or submission must be sent in a separate email (multiple updates to one station or multiple bitrates for one station can be in the same email)

3) We will only accept emails from the contact person that we have on file for the station or a station owner. Listeners, friends, station personnel not listed with us cannot make requests on behalf of a station.

4) Station Submission requests must contain all of the following information:

Station name (this MUST be the name as it is used in positioning on the station, we will not accept numbers or punctuation as part of a station's name unless that is a legitimate part of the station marketing, and yes we do check)
City/State/Country of Origin
Language of broadcast
Station Type (internet-only, terrestrial simulcast)
Is station commercial-free?
station genre(s) for tuner (PLEASE take a minute to look at existing iTunes genres), no more than 2 genres per station
website for station if there is one
Station description (to be shown in tuner, please keep short)
contact person name, email and phone number
bitrate(s)
IP/URL to point to (multiples with different bitrates are acceptable) (please note we only support MP3 streams at this time)

If you are a Live365 station, you must make your request through iTunes at Live365 (iTunes@live365.com)

5) Station Update requests must contain the following information:
Station name (this MUST be the name as it exists in iTunes)
contact person name, email and phone number

and of course the specific update you'd like made

6) Timelines:
we aim to address all station update requests within 10 business days, most within 5
we aim to address all station submissions within 90 days, most within 30

7) General information/guidelines/requirements:
-Station requests are handled on a first-come, first-served basis

-There is no guarantee of being added to iTunes.

-If we do add your station, we will leave it up a minimum of 90 days unless there is an issue.

-Your station can be de-listed at any time, without notice and may or may not be reinstated depending on this issues surrounding the takedown. We will try to contact you when we remove a station, but it is your responsibility to make sure your contact information is current with us.

-Having your listeners spam us with email is not helpful nor appreciated as it fills up the queue...please don't do it.

-We randomly check stations, if we find that a station is 1) abusing the system by using a name that is not part of the on-air marketing of the station or 2) is consistently full and inaccessible, we will remove the station without warning and you will not be able to get your station re-submitted until the issue is rectified

-There is no magic number of slots that must be available for a station to be considered but we do tend to send a lot of traffic to our radio partners. If we find that the station cannot meet the demand we will de-list it. A general rule of thumb is a minimum of 300 slots to begin with.

-If we see that certain genres are getting overly full we may de-list stations to keep the content fresh for our customers. you may re-submit stations 30 days after being de-listed.


-Most important, iTunes does not guarantee specific times of updates, station addition or station maintenance. If you choose to upgrade to heavy-duty server power or better equipment, that is completely your decision and not something we will consider when periodically cleaning up or de-listing stations. We cannot be made responsible for your livelihood.


Thank you for following these guidelines. We will NOT return phone calls, so please do not call or email incessantly to follow-up on a request. We will send you an acknowlegedment when we receive your email and when you can expect actions from us.

[Gavin]

Funny you should post that, I was thinking about writing a post about getting on to iTunes myself

[broadcastingworld]

Hehe no problemo!

[kahfluie]

Keep in mind that if you submit to iTunes, you best be prepared with a lot of slots (maybe not immediately, but eventnually). If you only have 50 - 100, that may not be enough in the long haul. There is no magic number, but as they said.... 300 is good number to start with, although you may not fill them all up immediately.

You also need a lot of patience as it can take a while before they get back to you. It took them 1-1/2 months to list my station. Do yourself a favor and do not contact them to check status until the initial 90 days are up.

In all honesty, all the things they say they "check"... they really do. Don't take it for granted that they don't or that they are so busy that they don't have time to check statinos. I know a number of broadcasters that were removed due to buffering issues and/or downtime issues.

Be sure that, while in the application mode, your streams are in good working order. They do check and listen for quite a bit on random days to check for buffering and downtime, etc

If you list with them - good luck!

Lou

[Gavin]

Yeah, i tcan take a while, I run an iTunes listed station and it took a month or two. Also, be prepared for the increase in listener numbers, we were averaging about 30-60 listeners until we got listed there and within a week or so it was up to 100-200 and most of our listener base is still from iTunes.



As a final note, I'd like to emphasise that Shoutcast servers hosted on the value network are not suitable for iTunes in most cases - this is because stations can find themselves in breach of our value network fair usage policy which results in slower speeds. This does not apply to people renting dedicated servers on the value network - it only applies to shared hosting. If you have a dedicated server on the value network then that will be ideal for iTunes listed stations. Premium network servers are ideal for iTunes listings because the bandwidth is guaranteed.


The odd problem here and there will not cause them to remove you, all stations get occasional buffering due to their DJs having bad connections at times and occasional downtime can happen with the best of servers, I'm sure that iTunes take that in to account.

[neji]

wish to find what you search for?. Visit - iTUNES

[thelegacy]

it also depends on what type of music you broadcast as apposed to what type of listener numbers you'll get. I have a paid server and in the morning from 8AM-5P I get 36 listeners falling to a 13 listeners at once average. I've been on iTunes for a year under Classic Rock and look for The Legacy. But again I play stuff that is not chart rock so the kids looking for Guns N Roses or Green Day after every hr to 2 hrs will leave the station because they want the usual everyday mainstream Rock.

If your Radio station is like mine and your retaliating against everyday dull Radio then you'll get the same numbers as I do and 100-250 slots will suffice more than enough. Yes Apple does do an auto check and usually has an IP address starting with 17. If your stream does not have an AutoDJ when your live stream drops and Apple detects this it can mean by by radio station for you.

Good Luck
Receive us on iTunes
Radio>Classic Rock>Press L and look for The Legacy