Draft RadioPublic RSS Metadata Specifications 1.0

Deep linking to a show in RadioPublic can be handled by encoding the feed URL and appending it after https://radiopublic.com/

Example: http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.theallusionist.org%2FAllusionist

Note that shows not included in the RadioPublic catalog will render differently and be blocked from crawling by search engines, which makes this appropriate for use with private feeds.

Example:

https://radiopublic.com/https%3A%2F%2Fspotlight.radiopublic.com%2Fnatehill%2Ftones.xml

Deep linking to individual episodes is possible, but because of RadioPublic architecture, we require a conversation with the hosting provider before offering documentation to ensure our systems are compatible.

The XML namespace for RadioPublic is https://w3id.org/rp/v1

Example: <rss xmlns:rp="https://w3id.org/rp/v1"> ... </rss>

<rp:play-order>

Location: within <channel> tag.

Possible Values:

• strict - play only in the order episodes appear in the feed
• strict-reverse - play only in reverse order
• prefer-latest - prefer the newest unheard episode by pubdate, with exceptions for teasers and greatest hits
• prefer-oldest - prefer the oldest unheard episode by pubdate, with exceptions for teasers and greatest hits
• default - user-agent defined

Note: this tag was introduced before the iTunes extensions in 2017. If the itunes type tag is present but the rp play-order tag is not, RadioPublic will use the itunes type tag to make a best effort.

<rp:cta>

Location: within <channel> tag.

Attributes:

• headline required
• subtitle required

Specifies a Call to Action for presentation to listeners of your show. Must contain one or more <rp:action> tags. At present, only the first action is used, but future versions of the app will support more than one.

Example:

  <rp:cta xmlns:rp="https://w3id.org/rp/v1" headline="Support the Show" subtitle="Supporting this show will ensure they keep making the show you love">
    <rp:action class="financial" disposition="positive" href="https://example.com" label="Support"/>
  </rp:cta>
        

<rp:action>

Location: within <rp:cta> tag.

Attributes:

• class required
• disposition ("positive", "negative", or "neutral")
• href required, url
• label required

Specifies an action for the enclosing CTA. Class must be "financial" currently, though additional classes can be added with minimal effort.

<rp:greatest-hits>

Location: within <channel> tag.

Should contain n <rp:episode-reference>s to episodes to highlight on the program view.

<rp:gateway-episodes>

Location: within <channel> tag.

Should contain n <rp:episode-reference>s to the best episodes, as determined by the owner of the feed, to introduce to a new listener.

If this is omitted, but <rp:greatest-hits> is present, the app will use <rp:greatest-hits> for this purpose.

<rp:episode-reference [rp:feed-url="..."]>

Location: within <rp:greatest-hits>, <rp:gateway-episodes>, or <item>.

Content of the tag is the GUID of the referenced <item>. Optional feed-url attribute defaults to the url of the feed the tag is within.

If included in an <item> tag, will cause the item to become a "pointer" episode, which will cause listening to happen against the referenced episode.

<rp:teaser>

Location: within <channel> tag.

Should contain a markup-free, 140-or-less character teaser to introduce the show to non-subscribers.

Recommendation: where possible, reference similar programs in different media, like TV or Radio, rather than related podcasts, in this field.

<rp:related-programs>

Location: within <channel> tag.

Should contain n <rp:program-link> tags for related programs to present on the program view.

<rp:program-link title="..." image-url="...">...</rp:program-link>

Location: within <rp:related-programs> tag.

Content of the tag is the url for the feed of the referenced program. title and image-url should come from the referenced program. In the future, apps may ignore the title and image-url attributes to fetch them directly from the referenced feed, but for now they do not fetch referenced feeds at all.