Changes to the Listen Live Streams: Update Your Bookmarks!

Many of you will know that CBC Radio 2 (and CBC Radio 1) recently changed the Listen Now streams to the MP3 format. This change has allowed us to reach a broader audience on more devices.

Unfortunately we've had a bump or two along the way. Some of you have been experiencing the dreaded "buffering" issue.

Well big changes are afoot this weekend and we've all got our toes and fingers crossed that these changes are going to result in more reliable service for you. The change is significant enough that we have to interrupt service briefly (we hope) on Saturday February 6 at around 5:00 pm ET.

Following the interruption to serviceall of the URLs (links) to the streams will have changed. How will this affect you? That depends. Scan the bolded headers below and pick the one(s) which describe(s) how you listen to CBC Radio 2's Listen Now streams.

Players and Links on cbc.ca

If you visit any of the cbc.ca pages to launch a player – such as the Listen Now player – you won't need to do anything. We'll flip the links for you. If you happen to have your player open when the switch takes place you may need to close and reopen the player to connect to the new stream.

CBC Radio iPhone App

If you use the iPhone App please make sure you have updated to at least version 1.2.2. It was released on January 20, 2010. Here's a convenient link to the CBC Radio app at the iTunes Store.

If you do not update your app it will no longer stream the Listen Now streams after Saturday 6 February.

Bookmarks/Favourites in your own player

You may have bookmarked or favourited a link in software players like Windows Media Player, iTunes, VLC, WinAmp, etc.or perhaps in a hardware device.

You will need to change these yourself. They will stop working after the change over. To find the current links please visit the handy-dandy Listen page. They will change on Saturday 6 February sometime between 5 & 6 pm ET.

iTunes Internet Radio

If you use the Internet Radio directory in iTunes to play CBC Radio Listen Now streams you should know that Apple will switch the links at some point on Saturday but there may be a slightly longer outage there.

You can always visit our Listen page, find the appropriate link and open it in iTunes yourself.

Squeezebox CBC App

The links in Squeezebox's CBC App will be updated shortly after the switch over on Saturday. If you have favourited your own link you'll need to manually update it (as above) but if you are using the app the most you will need to do is reload it (ie, navigate away to somewhere else and return to the CBC App).

What is not affected

Concerts on Demand, the various Listen Again offerings, Music Channels. None of these are affected by the change over.

Thanks

I've been using the royal "we" in this post but in fact the work leading up to and on Saturday is being done by Julian, Angela, Chad and others.

Most of all thanks to our listeners for their patience and for sticking with us as we work to serve you better.