This article covers how to format your story and audio for NPR One and how to actually push your story to the app.
Story and audience considerations
The stories in the app need to be able to stand alone. Unlike the audio we typically file, you need to cut a version for NPR One that includes the host lede. NPR advises making the station identifiable in the intro so listeners know it’s local material. If you don’t have someone else to record the host lede for you, just introduce yourself at the top, “I’m Jane Doe with KTOO.”
Strong host ledes are especially important in NPR One, because listeners can skip stories with the app, and most skips happen during the intro.
Dated references are problematic. The default shelf-life of a story in the app is one week, though you can override it and set a custom expiration date through StationConnect.org. Avoid dated references and relative times like yesterday and next week. Days of the week normally work for radio, but may still be a problem for our NPR One listeners, depending on the expiration date. Consider replacing time elements with specific dates so you can extend the shelf life of your story in the app.
Shorter stories tend to perform better. Stories that are 2:30 or less perform well. The app will not play stories over 12 minutes.
Technical specs
There are two audio file formats NPR One will accept.
Preferred:
Codec: HE-AAC v1
Channels: 1 (Mono)
Bitrate: 64 kbps
Sampling Rate: 44.1 khz
Normalization: File should have a loudness -20 LUFS
Extension: .mp4
Accepted:
Channels: 1 (Mono) or Stereo
Bitrate: 64 kbps Mono/ 128 Stereo
Sampling Rate: 44.1 khz
Normalization: File should have a loudness -20 LUFS
Extension: .mp3
With the loudness spec, LUFS require some extra work. Newer versions of Audition do have the means baked in. Choose Window > Match Loudness to add a panel that’s easy to use, or you can look in real time by going to Effects > Special > Loudness Radar Meter.
Cool Edit and Audition 3.0 don’t have the means baked in. You can download and install a plugin for Audition 3.0 that will measure LUFS here. NPR has a standalone tool for measuring loudness available here.
APRN wants audio with peaks between -3 db and -6 db, which in my experience falls short of the -20 LUFS that NPR One wants. Generally, when I’ve pushed my peaks to between -1 db and -3 db, it’s in the sweet spot for NPR One. That rule of thumb has not held when I’ve formatted other people’s packages for NPR One. Presumably, you can work out your own rule of thumb for your voice through trial and error and eventually skip the radar metering piece entirely.
Pushing to NPR One
In WordPress, upload your NPR One-specific audio so it’s attached to the post.
[This function no longer appears to work.] In the post publishing widget before publishing, ticking the “Send to NPR One” box. used to send the audio upon publishing the post.
You may need to change your screen options to make the NPR Story API widget visible to you.
With your audio attached to the story, press the Push to NPR One button to send your audio to the app.
The post should update and give you an NPR One Story ID. And you should see the story if you log into StationConnect. In past troubleshooting with NPR, we discovered that seeing it there doesn’t actually indicate if it’s made it into the app, though. The only way to really verify it’s in the mix is to listen. (At least, that’s the only way NPR has given us.)
If you need to replace existing audio in the app, say to get a corrected package up or to fix a technical error, you must completely delete the bad audio from the media library. If you have more than one piece of audio attached to a post, NPR One seems to pick the older file.
References
- NPR Digital Services’s complete NPR One Support Guide
- Editorial Help – Local Segmented Audio