Airtime is a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

management application for remote

broadcast automation Broadcast automation incorporates the use of broadcast programming technology to automate broadcasting operations. Used either at a broadcast network, radio station or a television station, it can run a facility in the absence of a human opera ...

(via web-based scheduler), and program exchange between radio stations. Airtime was developed and released as

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

, subject to the requirements of the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

until it was changed to

GNU Affero General Public License The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU General Public License, version 3 and the Affero General Public License. The Free So ...

History

The initial concept for Airtime, originally named LiveSupport, and then

Campcaster Airtime is a radio management application for remote broadcast automation (via web-based scheduler), and program exchange between radio stations. Airtime was developed and released as free and open-source software, subject to the requirements o ...

was developed in 2003 under GPL-2.0-or-later by Micz Flor, a German new-media developer. The concept was further developed by Ákos Maróy, a software developer and then-member of

Tilos Radio Tílos ( el, Τήλος; grc, Τῆλος, Telos) is a small Greek island and municipality located in the Aegean Sea. It is part of the Dodecanese group of islands, and lies midway between Kos and Rhodes. It has a population of 780 inhabitants ( ...

, Robert Klajn, a radio producer at

Radio B92 RTV B92, or simply B92 (stylized as b92, formerly BΞ92 and B 92), is a Serbian news station and broadcaster with national coverage headquartered in Belgrade. Founded in 1989 as radio station, it was a rare outlet for Western news and informati ...

, and Douglas Arellanes and Sava Tatić from the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF). The initial development was financed from a grant from the

Open Society Institute Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...

's Information Program, through its ICT Toolsets initiative. The development was originally coordinated by MDLF through its Campware.org initiative, now spun off as the independent not-for-profit organisation

Sourcefabric Sourcefabric is a non-profit organisation that develops open source software for independent news media organisations. It is based in Prague, Czech Republic, with branches in Berlin, Germany and Toronto, Canada. Sourcefabric was spun off from the Me ...

. In January 2011, Sourcefabric announced a rewrite of Campcaster, beginning with the 1.6 beta release. The new product, known as Airtime, replaced the C++ scheduler of Campcaster with

Liquidsoap Liquidsoap is a scripting language oriented toward the creation of audio and video streams, the manipulation of multimedia files, automation, serving as webserver back-end and more. The language is functional, statically typed with type inferenc ...

, and includes a drag and drop web interface based on

jQuery jQuery is a JavaScript library designed to simplify HTML DOM tree traversal and manipulation, as well as event handling, CSS animation, and Ajax. It is free, open-source software using the permissive MIT License. As of Aug 2022, jQuery is used ...

. 1.6 was released in February 2011 under GPL-3.0-only. Airtime 1.8.1 was released on May 3, 2011 following up on releases 1.7 and 1.8 in April. The ability to edit shows was introduced, show repeat and rebroadcast made possible, and the calendar improved with reported loading times five to eight times faster. Airtime's default output stream became

Ogg Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The authors of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high-quality d ...

, rather than

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

support, allowing users to automatically upload recorded shows, was announced in May 2011. Airtime 1.8.2 was released on June 14, 2011, with improvements to installation, upgrade, file upload limit and the interface. Airtime 1.9 was released on August 10, 2011, with a new file storage system that allowed users to set 'watch' folders, to synchronise files and to browse their audio archives. Also added were SHOUTcast support, a one line Ubuntu install command and improved front-end widgets. 1.9.4 was released on September 27 with DEB packages for Ubuntu and Debian. The Airtime 2.0 release on 25 January 2012 added new features including stream configuration through the browser, live stream preview, and uploading of any audio file to

. On 5 June 2012, Airtime 2.1 added live stream rebroadcasting from remote sources and on-the-fly editing of live shows in a revised Now Playing interface. A bugfix update 2.1.2 was released on June 18. Airtime 2.2 added smart blocks, live assist features and new streaming capabilities and was released on 29 October. Airtime 2.5.2 added a new / rewritten installer, stability improvements and several new APIs. Released on March 16 of 2015 under AGPL-3.0-only. 2.5.2.1 is the last version released on April 8 of 2015.

Stalled Development and LibreTime Fork

In August 2016 a representative from the Sourcefabric development team released a statement that their focus for Airtime had shifted primarily to its

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...

offering to increase revenue stream, with hopes to concentrate on the open source project in the future. He mentioned the possibility of forking the project. In 2017, a group of broadcasters made the announcement of a new

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...

to continue open source development of the software under the new moniker LibreTime.

Other software

Campcaster

Campcaster is a

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

management application for live broadcasting, remote broadcast automation (via web-based scheduler), and program exchange between radio stations. Campcaster was designed to allow implementation in a number of use scenarios, ranging from an unmanned broadcast unit accessed from remote through the Internet to a local network of Campcaster machines inside a radio station handling live broadcasts and delivering program automation by accessing a central audio storage system. The initial concept for Campcaster, originally named LiveSupport, was developed in 2003 by Micz Flor, a German new-media developer. The concept was further developed by Ákos Maróy, a software developer and then-member of

, Robert Klajn, a radio producer at

, and Douglas Arellanes and Sava Tatić from the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF). The initial development was financed from a grant from the

Awards

In September 2011, Airtime was nominated as one of five finalists in the Packt Open Source Awards 2011 in the Multimedia category. In 2012, Airtime won the ''

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...

'' Awards for Digital Innovation in the category Best Use of Technology for Social Change.

West Africa Democracy Radio West Africa Democracy Radio (WADR) is a trans-territorial, sub-regional broadcaster based in Dakar, Senegal. WADR is a project of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) set up in 2003 to protect and defend the ideals of democratic and ...

won a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism in July 2011, with Airtime cited as part of the platform.

Radio stations using Airtime

On 18 January 2011,

Resonance FM Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station specialising in the arts run by the London Musicians' Collective (LMC). The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and ...

announced in Issue #324 of UK music magazine ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...

'' a partnership with Sourcefabric to help "with testing the software and developing new features."

(WADR) launched a news platform that incorporated Airtime on April 1, 2011. Catalyst Radio announced the use of airtime for organising and broadcasting transmission content on June 13, 2011
Stress FM
a radio station based in Lisbon, uses Airtime to program its transmissions. Among the Creative Commons oriented Web Radios, supporting the sharing of free music we can mention Zootcast Radio
a project created two years back from an Italian Open Cultural Association. From July 15, 2012, Airtime uses Russian radiostation of international modern intelligent musi
Playpoint.fm

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://airtime.sourcefabric.org/ Free multimedia software Radio technology Internet radio software