What is radio now-playing metadata?

Now-playing metadata is the information that describes what a station is broadcasting at the current moment. At minimum this may include artist and track title. Richer platforms can also provide album artwork, elapsed time, listener counts, presenter details and recent song history. A metadata integration collects that information from the streaming platform and presents it in a listener-friendly format.

AzuraCast now-playing API integration

AzuraCast exposes structured station data that is well suited to websites and applications. A custom integration can poll or request the station endpoint, extract the current song and related values, then update a player, website card, mobile app or other service. The exact fields available depend on the station configuration.

SonicPanel and other metadata sources

Other radio panels can provide now-playing information through APIs, status pages or compatible endpoints. The integration approach should be chosen after reviewing the actual data returned by the station. It is better to build around the real endpoint than assume every hosting panel exposes identical fields.

Radio metadata for Discord and community tools

Current-track data can be reused beyond the website. A station may want a Discord bot, community dashboard, digital signage screen or studio monitor to show what is playing. A lightweight API layer can normalise the data and provide a consistent output for these tools.

Caching and reliability

Metadata should be refreshed frequently enough to feel live without placing unnecessary load on the station panel. Caching, timeouts and graceful fallbacks help keep the listener interface stable when the upstream API is briefly unavailable.