Open Streaming

Open your audio — share with the world

Starting 2/2/12, all new pieces on PRX will be open by default to "open streaming": non-logged-in listening of full streams, embeddable players, and the Facebook player playing the whole piece. Pieces that were added to PRX before 2/2/12 will NOT be open by default. All producers can change the status of their streams if they wish (instructions below), and can choose to open older pieces or not open new ones.

Before, pieces on PRX played a 30-second preview unless the listener was logged into PRX. In 2011, PRX allowed producers to open streams for each piece. Now, new pieces are open by default. The world has changed and many producers want listening to be easier and more accessible on PRX. Open streaming adds real value to sharing your pieces on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and more.

With one checkbox, open streaming allows:

• Access to an embeddable player that plays the piece on websites and blogs.
• The Facebook player to play the full piece, rather than 30 seconds.
• Visitors to the piece on PRX.org to listen to the full stream without logging in.

There is a huge, real advantage to leaving your stream open — all of the most listened to pieces of 2011 had open streams. More sharing and more eager ears hearing the pieces you worked so hard can translate to more stations buying your pieces for air.

Allow streaming on an individual piece

1. Go to the Permissions tab in piece edit. You can do this as you are creating a new piece, or by choosing Edit Piece from the Actions menu of your published piece page.
2. Under Sharing Options, make your piece open to the public by choosing "Open my piece so that anyone can hear the full stream on PRX.org, through Facebook's audio player, and by embedding the piece on websites."
   
   If this is checked, visitors to the piece on PRX can hear the whole piece without logging in, they can share the full piece on Facebook, and they can embed the piece on websites and blogs. If you uncheck it, only logged-in PRX users can listen to the whole piece; everyone else can hear a 30-second preview. The Facebook player will also only play 30 seconds. And, embeddable players are not available if this is unchecked.
   
   
3. Scroll to the bottom and choose Save and Exit or Save and Continue.

Allow open streaming on multiple pieces

1. Go to My PRX and choose Manage Pieces.
2. Check the boxes to the left of the pieces you'd like to open, choose Yes from the Open streaming... drop-down menu, and click Save Changes.

You can see which pieces allow open streaming by viewing the Open Streaming? column second from the right on this page. "Yes" means open streaming is allowed.