This was originally published as the December 10th edition of the Aiir Newsletter. Get the latest updates about PlayoutONE, Scheduler and more in your inbox by signing up for free.

The festive decorations are up for this special Aiirmail! The year may nearly be over, but there's still enough time for us to deliver a present filled with new features - plus some important dates for your diary about support over the holiday period.

Let's start with Scheduler, with these updates available now:

• Get an overview of your logs - see the status for an entire month at once, with counts for unscheduled items.
• Set chaining for each item in clocks and logs for supported automation systems - excellent for planning for satellite shows.
• A brand new look for the rules section to group related rules together and make it easier to glance through
• See more information about artists in your library drawer with quicker access to associated audio

For a full list of updates, see the updates on our blog for November and December.

And if you've not yet tried it, Scheduler is free to try through to the end of January 2026. You can import a library from your existing scheduler or automation system, build up your rules, set up a clock and see how easy Aiir Scheduler could make managing your station from anywhere.

The holidays often mean changes to your on-air lineup, and there's a few tweaks to our usual support schedule too. Our standard 24/7 availability for off-air emergencies remains the same, but for other issues covered in our regular support hours, here's how it looks. The changes from normal are marked in bold.

• December 22nd - 24th: Open as normal (weekday support)
• December 25th - 26th: Emergency support only
• December 27th - 28th: Open as normal (weekend emergency support)
• December 29th - 31st: Open as normal (weekday support)
• January 1st 2026: Emergency support only
• January 2nd 2026: Open as normal (weekday support)
• January 3rd - 4th: Open as normal (weekend emergency support)
• January 5th onwards: Open as normal

So if worse comes to worst - don't worry, our fantastic support team will be on hand to get your station back on air.­

And speaking of holiday radio traditions, it's time for our pre-recorded 'best of'. It's been a really busy year here at Aiir - we've been working with more stations than ever before and it's been an absolute delight. That's what drives us to keep adding and updating features, making it easier for you to create radio.

So alongside Scheduler, here's a few of the things that you've told us made a difference this year...

PlayoutONE

PlayoutONE 5.2 brought enhanced mobile support to WebVT - with an easy-to-use recorder, or connect with LiveMic.

And in version 5.3 we added support for real-time sync with Aiir Scheduler, keeping logs and library audio up to date.

Looking ahead, we also gave a first tease of the new look for version 6, launching next year. There's so much more to come...

­Audio.co

We relaunched RadioNewsAI as Audio.co - our AI-assisted service to help create news, weather, traffic updates for your stations. And now - ad production, complete with ready to air production music!

You can try it with the new $19 a month starter plan and see what it can do for you.

­Aiir CMS

And on the web, our listener interaction dashboard Studio Inbox gained support for Bluesky - so you can see messages from it alongside ones from WhatsApp, email, mobile apps and more.

We also added dark mode for the entire system.

And finally - I just want to say thank you.

We absolutely love radio, and it's our absolute pleasure to be able to support stations around the world who are creating great content day-in, day-out. Stations who know their audience and build close, personal relations with them. The quality of what you produce makes it a real privilege for us to work with you.

So thanks for being part of this wonderful, vibrant industry.

There's lots to look forward in 2026, but more on that later.

If you've got any questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to get in touch the usual way - drop us an email: support@aiir.com.

For now, thank you for reading, thanks for being part of this with us, and have a safe and happy holiday season. See you in 2026!

Sign up for more updates from the Aiir Newsletter

And the biggest update is to the Rules section of your library.

It's a new look that should make it easier to understand exactly what's being scheduled, and why.

We've grouped your rules together, given them new descriptions, removed some repetition and made it easy to glance through.

Each group can be expanded or collapsed so it's easy to navigate through. It's been restructured so you can quickly look through them to see why they're being applied and with what thresholds.

We've changed the order of rules to go from broader (affecting all audio) to more specific (targeting category or artist), and within those groups, we'll show them alphabetical so it's easy to see if something's missing.

Here's a before and after of the same section, which shows just how useful the grouping can be:

And speaking of rules, we've updated the 'info panel' on the bottom of logs to show more detail about any rules that are broken by a selected item.

We've also added a few enhancements you may notice across the system.

There's a new summary for each artist available in the library drawer. From the artists section, you can now see a quick view for basic information, any related artists and rules. It's also a quick way to see all audio associated with that artist.

When scheduling, you'll now see exactly what the system is doing - whether that's getting your audio, rules, or exactly which position is currently being filled.

And when you go to schedule or export logs, we'll automatically set the 'start date' based on your previous activity. You can of course change to schedule exactly what you'd like, but this should give you a little bit of a speed boost for regular tasks.

There's been so many updates to Aiir Scheduler in the last few months that it can be hard to keep up with them all - so just to make sure you're up to date, here's a reminder of what we've added recently...

• Reports, dayparting, customising pass orders
• Real-time sync of library audio and logs with PlayoutONE Pro
• Reconciliation and support for more automation systems
• A 'month overview' display and chaining

Phew! There's more to come in 2026, and we're really excited to share it with you all.

And if you've not yet tried it, Scheduler is free to try through to the end of January 2026. You can import a library from your existing scheduler or automation system, build up your rules, set up a clock and see how easy Aiir Scheduler could make managing your station from anywhere.

PlayoutONE Standard is now available completely free of charge for everyone.

This isn't a trial, a teaser, or a limited offer. It's a full release of the software that helped so many hobbyists, community stations, and broadcasters bring their ideas to life. And now it's available to anyone at no cost.

Why we're doing this

When we started building PlayoutONE, the goal was simple: make great radio tools accessible, reliable, and enjoyable to use. Over the years, PlayoutONE Standard has grown into a solid, capable, and surprisingly powerful piece of software. Even as we've continued to innovate in other areas at Aiir, I've always felt that Standard held a special place. It opened the door for people who simply loved radio and wanted to experiment, create, and broadcast.

By making PlayoutONE Standard free, we're removing one of the biggest barriers for hobbyists and newcomers. Running a radio station has never been easier or more affordable. Anyone with the passion and curiosity to try can now take their first steps without worrying about cost.

What this change means

PlayoutONE Standard will no longer receive updates or support from Aiir. I want to be honest and upfront about that. However, Standard remains a very capable system that many stations have relied on for years, and it continues to perform its job remarkably well.

In addition to making Standard free, LiveStream is also now free for everyone. This means hobbyists can broadcast live with ease, without needing to pay for the core tools that help bring a station to life.

For those using companion apps, Auto Importer and FileCopy can also be used at no cost, with a limit of one job per app. That's enough for many hobbyists and small stations to automate basic music, content, or file movement workflows.

And of course, for broadcasters who later find they need more advanced features, more automation, or a fully supported platform, you can upgrade to PlayoutONE Pro at any time. Pro is designed for stations with greater needs, providing you with the modern, scalable tools to grow confidently.

Lowering the barrier to broadcast

Radio has always been about creativity, community, and passion. Technology should help with that, not stand in the way of it. By making key PlayoutONE Standard tools free, we're lowering the barrier even further and encouraging the next wave of creators to get behind the mic.

If you've ever thought about starting a station, experimenting with formats, or simply exploring what radio can be, there's never been a better moment.

Enjoy it. Build something fun. Share something meaningful. And most importantly, keep the energy of radio alive.

To find out more and download PlayoutONE Standard, go to aiir.com/playoutonestandard.

Yes - following the launch of reconciliation, wider automation system support and new rules, we're not slowing down and we've got another batch of enhancements for Aiir's brand new Music Scheduler for radio to tell you about.

Log Overview

Sometimes you want to zoom out from a specific log hour and get a better overview of what your station is looking like across the month. So now when you're looking at a log, you can press the calendar icon to see...

The new month-long overview!

You'll see for each hour of the month whether it's been reconciled, exported, if there's any unscheduled positions or if it's just using the templated clock. There's a handy key to make sure you know what's what:

It's a great way to keep on top of things and make sure there's no little rogue hours or changes that catch you out.

Read more about Log Overview

Chaining

Some automation systems let you "chain" log items, specifying whether playback should automatically continue to the next item or stop when the current one ends.

If chaining is enabled, you'll be able to toggle it on log entries and clock positions.

It's particularly useful if you want to use Aiir Scheduler to build clocks for satellite shows, or set things up with the correct 'stop' positions for your live programs.

This is automatically enabled for users exporting to PlayoutONE. Zetta and Myriad users can enable it by going to the settings page of your library.

Read more about chaining

Dayparts

In Aiir Scheduler, you can break up your broadcast week into 'daypart' sections - these can be used for rules to ensure your content is spread across the clock, or also on individual audio items to either be played exclusively in those dayparts or excluded from them.

We launched this in September, and now we've made it even easier to manage them.

If you go to your library's settings section, and select the dayparts page, it's now quicker to make changes to your week.

On desktop, you'll now see your dayparts along the bottom - so you can pick them up and drag them to the correct hour. You can also drag them onto the label for a specific hour or day to add it to all of them at once.

There's also bulk actions available by tapping the day headers, including copying that day to another or clearing it, similar to how you can for Clock Assignments.

Tag and Custom Field Rules

You can already customise your library structure with tags and custom fields for audio items, but they're now even more powerful with additional rules. Alongside the existing options for flow and maximum adjacent items, you can now create separation rules. These let you set a minimum amount of time before an item with the same tag or matching custom field value can play again.

If you haven't tried Aiir Scheduler yet, there's no better time - it's completely free to use through to the end of January 2026. It's really easy to import your existing library from an automation system or alternative scheduler to get going.

And there's even more great features on the way before the end of the trial, so keep checking and see how Aiir Scheduler can help you create radio.

We're following on from the release of direct sync between PlayoutONE Pro and Aiir Scheduler with another batch of new features for our brand new cloud-based music scheduler!

Reconciliation

You can now upload a log from your automation system, providing a record of the items you played, a process known as reconciliation.

This means that you have an accurate history of what was played, which can be used in reports. Additionally, items that weren't played can be returned to the top of their categories to be played at another time.

If you set up Direct Sync between PlayoutONE Pro and Scheduler (requires PlayoutONE version 5.3), then there's nothing else you need to do - it'll automatically send the reconciliation logs as part of that process. If not, you can directly upload these via the Settings area of your library.

So if you look at a previous day, you'll see exactly what was played - or tap a button to see the hour as scheduled. This will help you to understand what's changed.

Your reconciled hours can be included in reports, so you can ensure your royalties are correct, and they'll be referenced when scheduling new hours (so your rules are applied based on what actually went on air), and used for the history grid on audio items.

And speaking of that history grid - you can now tap on any square to take you to that hour in the log. It's a really speedy way to jump around.

Support for more automation systems

Aiir Scheduler already includes support for PlayoutONE, WideOrbit, Myriad, PlayIt Live and Station Playlist - but we've had requests for many more, and we're more than happy to oblige.

So you can now export logs in the correct format for:

• ENCO DAD
• mAirList
• NexGen
• RadioBoss
• RadioDJ
• Rivendell
• Simian
• Zetta

or a generic .m3u format for any other system.

You can set these up by creating a station output.

Support for these systems is now in beta, so if you try them we'd love to hear how you get on. Just drop a message to our support team and let us know if it works or if there's any little tweaks they may need.

Yesterday, all my artists seemed so far away...

And by popular request, we've expanded the 'Yesterday, same hour' rule. As well as targeting the exact same audio item, it can now look for matches of any audio by the same artist.

You can also customise how the rule runs. There's the traditional option for looking at the exact same log hour on the previous day (so anything in the 11am Tuesday hour won't be played in the 11am Wednesday hour).

But you can now set it with a specified window, either side of the exact airtime. So this means that if you set it right, it can stop the same item from being played at 10:45am Tuesday and 11:15am Wednesday. They're different log hours, but fall within the same period for listeners. Customize it to match what works best with your station sound, it's a really powerful tool to reduce the chance of your station sounding repetitive.

That's all for now - don't forget Aiir Scheduler is free to try through to the end of January 2026. No commitment required, and it's really easy to import your existing library from an automation system or alternative scheduler to get going.

There's more features on the way throughout the trial, so subscribe to our newsletter to get reminders. And if you've got any thoughts, feedback or questions, just let us know: support@aiir.com. We've got some exciting things on the way and the comments we've had from everyone so far have really helped us prioritize what's coming next.

It's been the most requested feature for our new cloud-based Music Scheduler: synchronising changes in your library and logs with PlayoutONE.

We're happy to announce that this will be available from Wednesday, October 15th, with an update to PlayoutONE Pro (version 5.3).

You'll be able to connect to Aiir Scheduler by using Monitor, and then create an Auto Importer job to check for changes. Updates to your audio in either PlayoutONE or Aiir Scheduler will be sent to the other, and your log exports will be sent over the internet to PlayoutONE without needing to download and import the individual files.

And we know that changing your music scheduling system can be a big, complicated job - so we don't want to rush you into setting up the sync. We promised you'd get the chance to use this ahead of the full launch of Scheduler, and so we're pleased to announce we're extending the free trial of Scheduler until the end of January 2026.

Whether you've been part of our free trial period before, or if you sign up today, you'll have plenty of time to get to grips with how it works and comfortably get your station set up correctly with it.

We've added many great new features over the last few months, including reports, dayparts, sorting options, and more. Since our last update, we've also supercharged the speed of the system - scheduling your hours now is quicker than before. We'll keep you updated here and in our newsletter for what comes next.

Thanks to everyone who's been part of the trial so far. If you've got any feedback, suggestions, or questions, we'd love to hear from you. Just email support@aiir.com, and our fantastic team will get back to you.

Recap:

• Aiir Scheduler and PlayoutONE Pro sync launches on Wednesday, 14th October, with a new update to PlayoutONE, version 5.3.
• The Aiir Scheduler free trial period has been extended until January 2026.

In May, we released the public trial of our brand new Music Scheduler for radio stations. Thanks to everyone who's tried it so far and shared their feedback with us. We're thrilled to know that stations around the world are playing songs scheduled with this every day.

But that was just the start. Since then, we've been busy adding loads of new features, including those shaped by what you've been telling us. So as we launch our next batch of features, it's a good time to see what's new and what you may have missed since day 1.

And if you haven't tried it yet, you can try it for free through September 2025.

Reports

It's been teasing you with a little preview but the Reports section is now out of testing. Rather than limiting you to a specific set of presets, we've created an incredibly powerful tool to help you create the exact report you need.

Whether that's for putting together an exact history of your logs for royalty reports, or performing analysis on how much of your music meets certain criteria over time, you can build it with the data you want. Filter your logs by type of audio, time played, matching values for specific and more - and choose how they're laid out in the table.

You can see the results in your browser, print it, or export it as a text file or CSV.

And for our Canadian customers, our library setup flow will also automatically create a CRTC Canadian Content report for you based on your relevant options.

More about reports →

Dayparts

In your library settings, you'll be able to break up your 24 hour, 7 day week into different segments known as 'dayparts'.

You can then use the new Daypart Separation rule to ensure tracks are distributed across the clock.

This could mean ensuring songs are played in two unique dayparts before they can be played again in the same one. No more songs being constantly repeated in the mornings, but no other time of day!

More about dayparts →

Audio Item Time Restrictions

You can also use dayparts to easily restrict when an individual audio item can be scheduled.

When you edit an audio item, you'll now find these options under 'Time Restrictions'.

Choose exactly which hours are allowed on the 24/7 grid as before - but now we've added options to easy select/deselect entire days or hours across the week, or you can draw over an area with your mouse. It's incredibly speedy.

But you can also link restrictions to dayparts. This means audio can be scheduled any time except during a specific daypart, or only schedule it exclusively in a specific daypart - it's up to you.

It adds a lot more flexibility to how you can vary items across the day.

Even More New Rules

As well as Daypart Separation, we've added even more ways to use rules to craft the perfect station sound.

This includes a couple of popular requests:

• Vocal Gender Adjacent
• Related Artist Separation

And for more control: rules which could be applied to either just music or non-music audio, can now be applied to all audio. No need to double up on rules!

More about rules →

Sorting and re-ordering

Need to find your shortest song, or scroll through your most recently added items?

The search filters in Scheduler can be combined for some really powerful options - but sometimes you need to see those items in a different order. We've now added the option to change the display order when browsing many of the items in your library.

You can press the relevant header to sort by it that, and tap it again to swap to reverse order. There's also a dedicated 'sort' button (the two arrows) which allows you to access a few additional sort options that aren't seen as headers.

Save your pass orders

By default, when scheduling logs we start with the category with the lowest number of items. This is to give everything the best chance at finding an item without rules.

But sometimes you want a bit more control - maybe scheduling your A List first, or all of your music before any of your production.

You could already re-order your pass order when scheduling, but you had to set up the order every time. That's too time consuming. We've now added the option to your library settings to create as many pass orders as you like. For each one, choose which categories you'd like included, and sort them as works for you.

Then when you schedule (or unschedule!), you can choose your preset pass order of choice.

More about pass orders →

Improved Clock Assignments

And you'll also find time-saving improvements in the Clock Assignments section.

You can now drag and drop a clock from the drawer right onto the grid. There's 'bulk action' buttons for each day - tap the header and you'll see useful options for clearing, or copying to a different day.

And you can copy from Clock Assignment Templates to your week-by-week assignments. Like clocks, you can drag them from the drawer or click the header to 'copy from template'.

These are really powerful for special events, holidays or variations. Templates can be made to cover one to seven days, so you could have a specific template for a federal holiday, fundraising week or holiday season. Then each time it comes around, drag it on to the right day to override your regular schedule. It's a really easy way to re-use your assignments across the year.

Activity Logging

Long-term users of Aiir will be familiar with the activity log on the homepage, which is great for knowing what you're colleagues have been working on or providing an audit trail.

Changes made in Scheduler will now show as part of this log.

But we don't want to overload you with every single time somebody changes a log item. So on the homepage, we'll show you a summary of the most important detail. Need more? Tap the link to the full log you'll get the detailed view.

Also...

It wouldn't be a major update without everybody's favorite generic text, "bug fixes and performance improvements".

We've sorted a lot of details from improved color contrast on your clocks and categories, and a number of fixes for imports. This includes larger Music1 and MusicMaster libraries - so if you were unable to get your existing items into the system, give it another go.

And there's still more to come...

Phew! That's a pretty hefty list, but we're not slowing down. There's plenty more where that came from on the way!

It's the most requested feature so far, so I'm very happy to say that we are currently testing the real-time sync of your library items with PlayoutONE Pro.

This will be coming soon in a future update to PlayoutONE Pro and Auto Importer, and will be available by the end of the trial period, ready for the full launch of Scheduler. Keep an eye out for updates here on our blog or subscribe to our newsletter to find out when it's available.

We really appreciate everyone who's tried the Scheduler so far. We know that creating your logs is such a core part of any station's workflow that any changes or interruptions to that are done with a lot of caution. So thank you for trusting us with this and we hope you'll like the new additions.

If you need any help getting set up with these new features, we've published a range of new documents on our Support site. If you get stuck, find a bug, or there's something you'd love to see added to the product to be mentioned on our next update, please get in touch with us. We'd love to hear from you.

New York-based Aiir Inc, a leading provider of software and services for radio stations, today announced its rebrand of RadioNewsAI is complete and is proud to introduce Audio.co.

Audio.co offers AI-driven commercial production with quality music beds from TM Studios, as well as comprehensive AI solutions for news bulletins, weather, and traffic reports.

The launch of Audio.co introduces a new $19 a month package, allowing users to create 10 minutes of commercials and/or news reports each month.

Lee Price, Product Specialist for AI, Aiir: "With Audio.co, we're harnessing the latest advances in machine learning to make professional-sounding commercials and full news bulletins accessible to every radio station. No studio hire, no voiceover booking, just instant, on-brand audio at your fingertips."

Ricki Lee, CEO, Aiir:

"This rebrand marks a major milestone in our journey. Audio.co brings together our deep broadcast heritage with cutting-edge AI to empower stations of all sizes. From $19 a month, you can now produce polished commercials, weather, traffic, and news updates that keep audiences engaged and revenue streams growing."

Try Audio.co today.

We're delighted to partner with The Radio Academy as the new sponsor of their annual 30 Under 30 list of "ones to watch" in the UK radio and audio industry.

Since its launch in 2011, being included in the 30 Under 30 list has become established as one of the great honours of a young radio professional's career, with many alumni going on to senior leadership roles in the industry.

Our team at Aiir includes several alumni from previous years, so we're honoured to be able to pass the baton on to the next generation of developing talent.

Nominations for the 2025 list are open now, and will close on Monday 1st September.

To find out more and how to apply, head to the Aiir Radio Academy 30 Under 30 website.

Good luck!

Aiir helps radio stations sound brilliant with world-class automation, web, app, and studio interaction systems. Find out more at Aiir.com.

When we speak to people who aren't familiar with our products, one thing we sometimes hear when they see our company name is "Oh, you work with AI?"

While we're incredibly proud of the work going into RadioNewsAI, preparing new features for its upcoming relaunch as Audio.co, Aiir's products have been established long before the relatively recent emergence of generative AI productivity tools.

One of the key things we agreed on as a team was that we wanted to use AI to empower our customers to work more productively, rather than do their work for them.

We kept that in mind when we recently introduced a new addition to the Aiir platform: instant answers to technical questions, powered by AI.

Our support documentation has been created over several years, shaped not only by new features we add but also in response to questions from our users.

As our product lineup continues to grow, a problem we identified is that traditional search engines often fail to clearly indicate which product an article refers to. An example of that is when you take something like "logging in" or "metadata", which are mentioned several times in our docs for multiple products.

We want all our customers to have the best experience when using our products - and that includes when they need help with how to do something.

Our awesome support team will still be able to answer questions directly, but as so many questions we receive by email already have answers published in our support docs, we thought this would be a great opportunity to help them have more time to work with stations on things like PlayoutONE installation projects while also providing instant responses to customer questions.

Here it is in action. Simply click the Support button on the blue bar at the top, as before. Now, you have an additional option alongside reading the docs yourself or emailing our team for assistance: AI Answers.

This works just as ChatGPT or any other large language model you may have used before does, only our AI assistant has in-depth knowledge of how our products work and can provide you with instant answers to most questions.

If the AI assistant is unable to answer your question or you need more help, you can share the conversation so far with our support team, who can pick up where it left off and provide the answers you were looking for.

It's contextual, so if you ask a question within the Aiir platform, the answers provided will be related to the Aiir platform. For example, asking about "adding news stories" through the Support button will only show answers relating to the CMS, rather than anything from RadioNewsAI or our other products that use similar phrases.

Our AI assistant is now available in the Aiir CMS (on.aiir.com) and will be introduced to our other products in the future.

New York-based Aiir Inc, a leading provider of software and services for radio stations, has today announced the public release of its world-first product: a cloud-based music scheduler.

Aiir's music scheduler changes the way you think about and schedule your radio station's music, for the first time in decades. It requires no software to be installed, allows multiple users, multiple stations, and formats. Just log in with a web browser to get started.

Ricki Lee, Aiir CEO: "After extensive beta testing, showcasing our music scheduler at the NAB Show where it won a 'Best in Show' award, it's now publicly available for everyone to use. We soft-launched it a week ago and already have over 100 radio companies using it around the world. You can get started quickly by importing your data from existing popular music scheduler systems."

Aiir Scheduler is available now at Aiir.com/scheduler. It is free for everyone to use until the end of September 2025; pricing will then start from $60 USD (£40+VAT in the UK only) per month.

You can export logs to PlayoutONE, WideOrbit, Myriad, PlayIt Live, and Station Playlist, with support for more automation systems coming soon.

Hey, who turned out the lights?

We're delighted to announce that you can now use the entire Aiir platform in a brand-new look.

To set this, tap your name and avatar in the top bar and go to Appearance. There you'll find a new option for Color Scheme (or Colour Scheme, depending on your language setting - which you'll now find on the same screen!).

You can choose between:

• Light (the current, familiar look)
• Dark
• Match your OS: This means whatever preference your device has, we'll match it. This is particularly useful if you have different options set on different machines.

These options are specific to your own account - so everyone across an organization can have things set up however best works for them.

For existing users, you'll be set to 'light' by default, so there's no unfamiliar shock when you next log in. For new users, we'll set it to match your device preference. You can change your own preference at any time and see what suits you best.

Previously, we only offered a dark mode option within Studio Inbox, where individual workspaces had a light/dark setting, shared between users.

Right now, if you have Dark Mode set for your Aiir account, this will override showing the light option for any Studio Inbox dashboard. In the future, we'll simplify this and remove the per-workspace option and rely exclusively on your user preference.

It's been a big undertaking to update our entire system for this, particularly as it covers so many tools across Websites, Mobile Apps, Alexa and more. So if you do spot something that feels a little tricky to use, just let us know on the usual support email address and we'll look into it.

Since the start of this year, we've been gradually rolling out our new icon set across Aiir. You may have noticed small tweaks throughout - maybe the change of a + button, or icons within Site Settings.

There's still more places we'll be updating them in the coming weeks and months, but this update to the main app icons is probably the most notable change you'll see as part of this.

We decided to update the icons as part of our ongoing work to improve the look of the platform. They're built with a new technical approach that will allow us to launch some exciting new features which we'll hopefully be able to share more news about shortly. It also has given us the chance to refine their look, reduce some of the complexity and review the use of colours to improve accessibility.

Any change to something you use every day has the chance to be a bit jarring, so hopefully you've not been thrown too much by these. We've been trialing them for the last few weeks and they've settled in for us incredibly smoothly so we hope they do for you too.

If there's any issues, feedback or comments, we're always happy to hear from you - just let us know by emailing support@aiir.com.

We've introduced the new-look icons in Aiir as part of the launch preparations for our new web-based Music Scheduler. It'll sit alongside your existing tools for managing your websites, apps, Alexa Skills and Studio Inbox... and you'll be able to try it from May 19th!

The latest update for the PlayoutONE radio automation system is available now.

For Pro users, you'll find:

• improved mobile support for WebVT on iOS and Android
• a new 'tag' system to help you keep on top of your media library
• diagnose issues in real-time with a dedicated troubleshooter for LiveMIC
• connecting with services like Radio Workflow and MusicMaster is easier than ever

And for all users, there's a smoother experience with an up-to-date collection of improvements and fixes across the system.

You can watch our video below to find out more about the new features:

Or you can find the full release notes, including a list of bug fixes, on our support site.

Want to know when the latest updates to PlayoutONE and other Aiir products are available? Sign up to the Aiir Newsletter to find out first.

You can now add your Bluesky account to Aiir, to use in Studio Inbox and Social Publisher!

Bluesky joins WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, SMS, mobile app messages, email, RSS and web forms in making Studio Inbox an incredibly powerful way to keep in touch with your listeners, all on one screen.

Get started

First up, you need to add your Bluesky account to Aiir. An administrator or owner can go to the Admin section, then tap "Add or remove social accounts".

You can choose Bluesky from the "Add account" menu:

Next, head to your Bluesky account to create an "app password". Then paste that and your handle into the boxes:

And you're good to go! You can choose who has access to this account in Aiir. Only they will be able to post to it in Social Publisher, or add it to a column in Studio Inbox.

Post to Bluesky in Social Publisher

Posting to Bluesky is just like posting to any other social network in Aiir.

You can enter a message and then attach up to 4 images or a link.

Schedule a message to post later, or post right way - the choice is yours.

Bluesky in Studio Inbox

With Bluesky in Studio Inbox, you'll be able to see your own posts, direct replies to your posts, and @mentions of your handle, all in one place.

You'll see attachments and quoted posts, and you can reply, repost, like and follow too.

Just like other posts in Studio Inbox, you can drag a Bluesky post to a "curated column", so you can stack them ready to read on air, or reference later. You can also block a sender, run a poll, or filter posts for keywords!

Aiir's integration with Bluesky for radio stations means you can post content and manage listener interaction, and control who has access, all in one place.

It's available today!

→ Learn more about Studio Inbox

As I write this on New Year's Eve 2024, I want to personally wish you a Happy New Year and hope your 2025 will be as amazing as I hope ours will be.

We're so lucky to work with 1000s of radio professionals from around the globe daily. My focus on this end-of-year message is less on our company's achievements and more on our clients' successes. How they use our solutions in today's ever-changing radio industry.

There are so many more amazing examples of our clients using our solutions to create radio. But I hope you enjoy just a few of my personal highlights.

Nation Player

Nation Broadcasting launched their Nation Player website with Aiir some time ago. This year has seen a vast expansion of Nation Player and partnerships with TuneIn and more.

It brings all of Nation Broadcasting's brands and websites to a single point of entry. Making it easy for listeners and consumers to explore all of their brands in one place.

Using the Aiir CMS platform, and our locations technology, they have created an excellent platform that they are expanding to include radio stations that are owned by other operators. Although not powered by Aiir, their extensive custom mobile app is also an enjoyable experience.

WNBZ

WNBZ is a radio station based on the border of the United States and Canada. Serving the Plattsburgh, NY, and Burlington VT radio market.

Just over a year ago, they relaunched the brand as a focused Classic Hits format. Taking advantage of PlayoutONE and WebVT, they have created an excellent local radio station that serves its community in the best way possible. It's worth a listen to it's daytime programming.

They have grown with us this year, adding a website, mobile apps, and Alexa skills, amongst other things.

One of my highlights is their use of Aiir Streaming. They offer an on-demand / listen-again experience allowing their audience to enjoy their programming that has already aired on their website and via their mobile apps at a later time.

Arsenal Media

An amazing radio group based in Canada that joined Aiir this year utilizing PlayoutONE Pro and some of our new Custom VoiceTrack and Shared VoiceTrack solutions.

Syndicating the log out to their stations with custom localized VoiceTracks allows them to use talent on multiple stations at the same time, without compromising the importance of local content.

DevonAir Radio

DevonAir Radio is an FM community licensed radio station in the UK who have grown to become a leading voice in their community and growing to become a DAB broadcaster.

Andy and his team at DevonAir Radio are a great example of what a small, focused, and dedicated team can achieve. A truly great example of community radio.

Early this year we acquired RadioNewsAi.com. DevonAir Radio had been using RadioNewsAi before our involvement to assist them with additional voices on the air reading their local news.

They create RSS feeds that are curated locally to generate local news reports and then manually generate the report before it goes on the air.

The Example in the video here is from a story created by RadioNewsAi from an RSS feed and then audio created using one of our UK Cloned voices.

Happy New Year

We're excited as a team for 2025. Happy New Year to you. We look forward to working and seeing you in the New Year!

Ricki CEO | Aiir

Aiir has announced its plans to rebrand its recently acquired Radio News AI (radionewsai.com) to Audio.co (audio.co)

Audio.co is set to launch in Q1 of 2025 and, as part of the launch, will introduce an AI-driven commercial production offering via a new partnership with TM Studios.

Lee Price, Aiir Product Specialist (AI): "We're expanding our AI offering and rebranding Radio News AI to Audio.co with the introduction of a powerful new commercial production toolset. Audio.co will allow users to generate "spec spot" scripts, create AI voiceovers, and thanks to our new partnership with TM Studios, choose a piece of music from their extensive Studio Dragonfly music library."

Audio.co will provide a wide variety of groundbreaking AI audio solutions and continue to offer AI news, weather, traffic, and information reports for radio.

Aiir has appointed Lee to lead the product. He brings extensive experience in radio and audio production from his previous roles at Global and Bauer Media Group. He has also worked in AI for many years and is eager to apply his expertise to this latest innovation.

Lee adds: "My background in radio, combined with my experience in AI, has given me a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities in this space. I'm excited to bring that experience to Aiir and contribute to the growth of audio.co."

We've got a small bundle of improvements to share for Aiir's Alexa Skills.

First up - you can now have Alexa announce the name of who is on air, before the stream starts playing.

Here's an example of how this might sound:

You: "Alexa, open Kiss 97.3"

Alexa: "Welcome to Kiss 97.3. This is Breakfast with Laura Grace"

(live audio starts playing)

This information is powered by Aiir's Programme Information tool. If you've already set up your schedule there, then enabling this feature is as simple as flicking a switch.

Head to the Alexa Skills section, select your skill, and then tap on the new "Announcements" section.

Then turn on "Announce the programme on air now":

By default, Alexa will say "This is {programme name}" but you can change this if you like.

We've also added the ability to change how Alexa will say each programme's name. So if it doesn't sound quite right, or if you want to add something extra like a sponsor's name, you can now edit a programme and tap "Change how the name is spoken by services like Alexa".

It will also be used if you ask your skill "who is on air".

Next - you can now specify alternative invocations for stations in a multi-station Alexa skill.

So if a listener might mispronounce or say a variation on a station name, you can add it so Alexa will recognise it as the same station.

To do this, head to the "Manage stations" page, select the station, and then tap "Add alternative invocation names".

Last one - you can now tell Alexa how to say the name of a station.

By default, Alexa uses the invocation name of a station, but that might not sound great when read out.

For example in an invocation name, "UK" must be written "u. k." - note the space in the middle. But when Alexa says this, the space becomes an unnaturally long pause.

To resolve this, head to the "Manage stations" page, select a station, and then tap "Change how Alexa says this station name".

You can then enter something more suitable, with support for "SSML" (we provide a link to further guidance on this).

→ Learn more about Aiir's Alexa Skills for radio stations

That's all for now - thanks for reading!

Meta has announced the Threads API is now available, meaning third parties can integrate with the service in their own products.

We've been eagerly waiting for this day, and we're pleased to say Social Publisher now supports posting to Threads!

Get started

First up, you need to add your Threads account to Aiir.

To do that, you need to be an Administrator. If you are, head to the Admin section in the main menu, and then tap "Add or remove social accounts".

From the "Add account" menu, choose Threads.

You'll need to be logged in with the Threads account you'd like to add. Then just follow the flow to add your account to Aiir. You'll be able to choose who in your organisation should be able to access this account.

Post to Threads

Next, head over to Social Publisher. You'll now see your Threads account is there for you to select.

Your posts can be just text, or have up to 10 image attachments. You can attach a link, or just enter the URL in the message.

As always, you can post right way or schedule to post later. You'll be able to see what's scheduled from the "Upcoming Posts" page.

Happy Threading on Aiir!

Radio News AI is a leading audio AI tool used by radio stations worldwide to create news, sports, weather, up-and-coming events, and traffic reports using AI and cloned voices.

Ricki Lee, Aiir CEO: "Aiir's mission is to help our customers 'Create Radio'. I believe Radio News AI perfectly fits our mission statement. This acquisition means Aiir has entered the AI space for the first time, and I cannot wait to share our growth plans for this product with you in the coming months."

Stefan de Groot, Founder, Radio News AI: "I can't imagine a better match for acquiring Radio News AI than my new friends at Aiir. Many of our users are already using their software, and I am positive they will take the platform and all its possibilities to the next level."

You can find out more about Radio News AI at radionewsai.com

We've today announced the launch of Aiir Streaming. Our brand new streaming platform built with Zeno Media's proprietary streaming technology.

Our new streaming service adds the ability for us to offer our clients programmatic advertising via Zeno's programmatic platform allowing our clients an amazing way to monetize their streams.

Morris Berger, Zeno Media CEO: "Working together with a high-quality partner as Aiir is something we cannot be more thrilled with. Ricki and the Aiir team have the right attitude and have proven to be the gold standard in the radio space"

We're delighted to be partnering with Morris and the team at Zeno Media. This collaboration allows us to offer an industry-leading streaming platform, with a beautiful and simple interface.

It's available right now for you to sign up at Aiir.com/streaming. Plans start at $20 per month, with discounts for annual billing.

We've got some exciting news to share with our Studio Inbox users. A long-awaited feature is now available to add to your workspaces: WhatsApp messages.

It's been one of our most-requested Studio Inbox features, allowing broadcasters to ditch switching between tabs or apps while on-air and bring even more listener interactions and useful info together in one place.

WhatsApp is the latest addition to our growing list of sources you can connect to Studio Inbox - joining SMS, mobile app messages, emails, RSS feeds, web forms and comments from Facebook and Instagram.

How does it work?

It's really easy to get started - just head to Studio Inbox in Aiir, go to the Sources tab. If you're an administrator, tap the option to set up a new WhatsApp source, following the on-screen instructions.

Once you're up and running, Studio Inbox can show messages sent to your station's WhatsApp number, including any images, videos or audio attachments.

As with all Studio Inbox sources, WhatsApp messages can be added to an existing workspace or added as a new column.

Your team can reply to incoming messages, and a log of who said what and when will be kept in Aiir.

Bring your existing WhatsApp number

We've tried to make adding WhatsApp to Studio Inbox as easy as possible.

You can use your current WhatsApp number, but you may need to delete any existing WhatsApp accounts to free up your chosen number to be used by WhatsApp's business messaging platform, which powers Studio Inbox.

If that sounds daunting, don't worry. Creating the platform account is done for you as part of the setup process. Meta doesn't allow a number currently registered with WhatsApp to be used, so you may need to remove your current account so the number can be re-used.

How much does it cost?

Support for WhatsApp is included at no extra cost for Studio Inbox users.

Meta, which owns WhatsApp, may impose limits or charges depending on the volume of messages sent.

There are no charges for receiving messages, and in most cases, businesses can send up to 1,000 messages per month before any charges will be incurred. As most radio stations will receive way more messages than they send, the chances of WhatsApp's free tier limits being reached are slim - it's up to you how you use it!

Any usage charges will be billed directly by Meta through your WhatsApp business account rather than through Aiir.

Getting started

If you're an existing Studio Inbox customer looking to get started, check out our handy support guide. You can add WhatsApp through our recently revamped "Sources" section within Aiir.

If you haven't used Studio Inbox before and want to find out more, check out Aiir.com for more details.

Never miss an update from Aiir - subscribe to the Aiir Newsletter to get all the latest news straight to your inbox.

Studio Inbox is our powerful dashboard that brings together listener messages and live updates into one easy, customisable view.

But when you have so many things available to choose from, perhaps multiple website forms, mobile apps, RSS feeds, SMS numbers, social media accounts... they can all add up, and keeping track of them all and finding the right one can feel a bit overwhelming.

So we've got three updates that should make it easier for you to feel in control.

A new section to manage your sources

Previously if you wanted to add or edit a source, they weren't all done in one place. Some were controlled via one button, SMS was via another, and social accounts managed elsewhere entirely.

Now there's a brand new "Sources" section, found from the Studio Inbox homepage to help and guide you. Each type of source has its own page to help you set it up. So if there's any issues, changes or settings you need to check - it's a lot easier to know where to start.

A new look for column editing

Studio inbox lets you combine multiple sources into one column - so you have full control over your workspace layout.

But when you have a lot of options to choose from, it can feel a bit overwhelming to scroll through and select the right ones.

The new column editor lets you search and filter through everything you have available, so it's much easier to scroll and pick the ones that you need - and see a nice simple summary of them.

Updates to icons

We've changed which icons are used to represent certain types of messages so they're now more consistent across Studio Inbox and the rest of the Aiir platform.

For SMS messages, these now show with the green 'message' icon.

Messages sent from our mobile apps previously had different icons for text, photo or audio messages. Now they'll all show with the same 'phone' icon.

It's a bit of a swap around compared to what they were before, but it should bring a bit more clarity throughout the interface.

—

We hope these updates help you take full advantage of the many things possible with Studio Inbox. We want to keep adding more to it to ensure that it has everything you need in real-time, so if there's anything you'd like to see in your inbox, or a specific way you'd like to use it in your studio, let us know!

It would be great if we could give members of our team access to send push notifications, without also allowing them to make changes to the apps themselves...

We hear you! Introducing a new section - Mobile Push Notifications!

If you already have access to the Mobile Apps section, then you'll automatically have access to this new section too.

From here on though, Administrators can decide if someone should have access to just one of these tools.

We've also introduced a new "dashboard" which you'll see when you open Mobile Push Notifications.

It shows you the last few sent, the next few scheduled, and your drafts, all in one place.

That's it! We hope you enjoy this small update.

We've picked some of the most popular requests and put together a small package of improvements, which are available for you now.

Article image

If you're using high quality images for your news articles, you might want to show them as big as they can be.

You can now choose between showing the image full width or to the side.

You'll find this option in the Settings page of the News section, or you can change it per category.

Mid-article ad

Further monitise your content by including an ad within your articles.

You can choose after how many paragraphs to insert it. So if you want it to appear just after the "abstract", choose after one paragraph.

This option is also on the Settings page. Once it's enabled, you can assign your ads to the newly created "Mid-article" position. It works with third-party ad providers like Google, too.

Content after a story

You can now add custom content that will appear at the bottom of articles, just after the social sharing buttons.

You might want to promote where to follow you on social media, your newsletter, or embed third party advertising code for example.

If you do this, you may also want to disable the "More from..." section that we provide which lists other articles in the same category.

You can set up both of these things on the Settings page, or they can be set per category.

Index page changes

You can now change how many articles appear per row on a desktop display, and whether or not to show the abstract.

These options can be set per category, per station or site.

Head to the Categories section of News, select a category, then "Add or remove from stations", choose a station, and you'll see the new options.

The article image, mid-article ad, and custom content at the bottom, all apply to the version of articles that appear within our mobile apps too.

We hope you find these new features useful. If you have any feedback or ideas for other improvements for our services, please let us know. Simply email: support@aiir.com

Thanks for reading!

We're excited to unveil a feature that we've received many requests for.

You can now schedule a push notification for your mobile app to be sent at a specified date and time.

Once you've selected the app and entered a title and body for the notification, you'll then see a new option, "Schedule to send later".

Tap this and then select a date and time. It's that simple.

You can see all of the notifications you've scheduled to send later by heading to the new "Scheduled" page on the side menu.

You'll also notice another new page - "Drafts".

If you're not ready to send a notification just yet, or maybe you want to share it with a colleague to get a second opinion, you can save it as a draft, and return to it later. This is the default action when writing a notification, so you don't accidentally send something before it's ready for the world!

If you're happy with a draft as it is, you can easily "send now", using the 3 dot menu next to a notification.

We hope you like these improvements for sending push notifications for your Aiir mobile app.

If there's anything you'd love to see in a future update, let us know your idea via email: support@aiir.com

Studio Inbox is our dashboard that brings together your listener messages and puts you in control of how they're organised, so everything you need to know in the live studio environment is set up best for you.

And now it's even more flexible, because you're now able to pull in the latest content from across the web with RSS Feeds.

So whether it's news, traffic or other updates, if it's available on an RSS Feed, you can see them on the same smart screen as your social posts, emails, form submissions and app messages.

How it works

To get started, open the side menu of your Studio Inbox workspace, and press Sources.

From there, press the button to add a new RSS Feed. Put in the feed URL and give it a name.

You'll then be able to add this source to any columns you like. Just like other sources in Studio Inbox, you can show it in a dedicated column, or combine it with others. How you organise things it is up to you.

The latest posts from your chosen feeds will be fetched by our system at regular intervals, and then they will flow in to your inbox.

You can tap the item to read the full story from the feed or open the link to the original source. Want to save a story for later? Drag it in to a Curated Column and keep it ready for you.

—

This feature was inspired by comments from our users, and we're really excited to see how you use it and what sources you add. Maybe you'll find all sorts of uses or sources of content to help you in the studio that we didn't expect!

So if you've got any questions, or if there's anything you'd love to see in a future update to Studio Inbox or one of our other products, please let us know! Drop a message to support@aiir.com with your feedback and suggestions. It'll be shared with the team and it may influence what features we announce here next.

The next time you search for something in our CMS, you might notice things look a little different.

To start, tap the new simplified search icon in the top-left corner.

You'll see the new Search pop-up box. Start typing to find what you're looking for.

There's a new drop-down menu to filter the type of results - by default it's "Everything" but you can choose to only see news articles for example, or ad campaigns.

If you have multiple websites in your organisation, and a result is specifically relevant to one of them, you'll see the name of the site above the item's title, as shown above.

Keyboard navigation

The new search box can be used entirely from your keyboard.

To open it, tap "S".

Use the arrow keys to navigate up and down the results. Tap "enter" to be taken to the selected item.

For users of screen readers, you should find the new search box to be more accessible. Each result will be announced to you as you navigate.

We hope you enjoy these improvements to Search in Aiir.