play.it is the next generation radio tool from CBS Radio, developed and curated by a dedicated team of radio lovers with the intention of offering one of the largest digital music libraries in the world to anyone with an internet connection. play.it marks the first time a visual tool has ever been used to allow listeners to create a customized radio station. And it doesn't stop there. Hear a song you like? Then buy it. Got a favorite station? Share it with a friend. Got a lot of favorite stations? Save them for instant access the next time you log on. Welcome to the future of radio. Welcome to play.it!
General Questions
Q: What is play.it? Q: How is play.it different from other online music services? Q: What software do I need? Q: What type of Internet Connection do I need? Q: Do I have to register to use play.it?
Getting Started
Q: What's that new button on my player next to the pause? Q: Why does it say "Accessing" in the album art area? Q: Controls Q: Song Information Display Q: What will happen if I click the slides in my player? Q: Other Similar Stations Q: [More] Song Information Q: Share a Station Q: Rate this Song Q: Buy Songs or CDs
Station Searches
Q: How do I search for stations?
History
Q: How do I access my listening history? Q: How long is my history stored? Q: Can other users view my history?
Presets
Q: What is the point of presets? Q: How do I add a station to my presets? Q: How do I change my presets? Q: How many presets can I set? Q: How do I delete a preset station?
Settings
Q: How can I set my connection speed preferences? Q: When the player launches, the volume is too high/low. Q: Why do I have to login when re-launching the player? Q: How do I share one of my stations with a friend?
Registration
Q: Do I have to register to use play.it? Q: How do I register? Q: What are the benefits of registration? Q: What do you do with my registration information?
Stations
Q: Why are songs I didn't select showing up in my stream? Q: Why is there advertising in my stream? Can I deactivate advertising? Q: How much advertising will I be subjected to?
Troubleshooting
Q: Why is my player falling asleep? Q: How do I prevent my player from falling asleep? Q: I received an error that reads “This station is unavailable from your current location”. Why? Q: My player won't start. What can I do? Q: My audio is stopping, or stuttering. What can I do? Q: I'm using AOL Client 9.0 or 9.1 and I'm having problems with the player. What can I do? Q: My presets keep disappearing in Firefox. Can I do something to prevent this? Q: How do I reset to Manufacturer Settings in IE7? Q: How do I clear my Flash Player Cache in IE7? Q: I received an Adobe 'Local Storage' pop-up. What does it mean?
General Questions Q: What is play.it? play.it is a free online experience that allows you access to over 350 music, news, sports and talk stations. This unique one-of-a-kind listening platform incorporates stations covering the widest possible range of formats and genres. Whether it's Pop, Rock, Jazz, Classical, Oldies, Urban, Country, World, Latino, Alternative or any of over a hundred other styles and genres, play.it guarantees you'll be able to connect directly with all your favorite music, news and information. And it doesn't stop there. With just a few clicks and drags of your mouse, you can custom-design the radio station of your dreams – and share it online with all of your friends! play.it puts you in control and gives you instant access to one of the largest digital music libraries in the world.
Q: How is play.it different from other online music services? It's a lot better! play.it combines the best of traditional broadcast radio, digital radio, and personal radio with one of the largest music libraries in the world. All told, you get more than 200 stations from AOL, and over 100 stations from CBS Radio. And that's pretty special.
Q: What software do I need? play.it works entirely through your browser, so you do not need any separate software. You do, however, need Flash Player for your browser, which is often already installed. If not, you can get the latest Flash Player plug-in (currently Version 9) for your browser here: PC and Macintosh Users: Download Flash Player for All Platforms here
Q: What type of Internet Connection do I need? All radio stations are available to narrowband (dial-up) and broadband users, but they will receive those stations at different bit rates to ensure the optimal experience for their bandwidth. Broadband listeners should be prepared to handle a stream of around 64 Kbps, while narrowband will come in at around 32 Kbps. To see how to change your connection speed setting, click here.
Q: Do I have to register to use play.it? No.
Q: What's that new button on my player next to the pause? On many stations that do not simulcast a radio signal, you will see a "skip" button.
As you might expect, you can use this button to skip the current song if you don't like it! However, due to music industry rules you're only allowed to skip three songs in a row or six songs within an hour.
Q: Why does it say "Accessing" in the album art area? If you are listening to a CBS Radio station, "Accessing" means that either the album art or a slide is being retrieved. This should not affect your ability to listen to the best quality stream available. If you are listening to an AOL Radio station or a custom station, "Accessing" usually means that the next song is being selected for your player. Because each play.it listener is getting a unique Radio experience, you may encounter a slight pause between songs since each session is exclusive to that user. We are doing our best to eventually eliminate this delay.
Q: Controls The radio controls are just like controls on any music player.
Q: Song Information Display You can find information such as the artist, song and album names for the song currently being played. Information about how you can rate songs in available here. The timer located at the bottom of this box indicates how much time is left in the current song.
Q: What will happen if I click on the slides on my player? The radio player provides slides for your viewing and information while you are listening to CBS stations. These slides are updated regularly and contain supplemental news, sports, or programming information related to that station's format and sponsors. If you see a slide that interests you, try clicking on it!
Q: Other Similar Stations In the lower right hand corner, use the "Other similar stations" section to find a related station link. Each similar station plays similar music to the one you have selected. To listen to a similar station, simply click the station name—it's that easy!
Q: [More] Song Information Rolling over the album art shows links to search for more information about the currently playing song. Whether you want to learn more about the song, artist or album, a simple click will expose everything you ever wanted to know about your favorite music, courtesy of AOL Music.
Q: Share a Station You can share a station with your friends while you are listening to a song either via email or instant message.
Q: Rate this Song Wanna let the DJ know what you feel about a song? play.it's RATE THIS SONG feature lets you do just that. The RATE THIS SONG link is located right below the SONG, ARTIST, and ALBUM names on your radio player. Select a rating any time while a song is playing to let our DJs know how you feel about that song. Your feedback is an important factor in station programming. So start rating today!
Q: Buy Songs or CDs That's an ecommerce link, allowing you to purchase a digital version of the song that's currently playing, or the entire album it's featured on as either a digital copy or physical CD (if available). This example shows the "download" link highlighted:
After clicking on this link, you will be asked if you want to purchase a download from Amazon.com, or the iTunes Store, or both. When the song changes, so does the ecommerce link, so if you missed the immediate opportunity to purchase the song, just go the HISTORY tab and you'll be able to buy it there.
Q: How do I search for stations? There are several ways to search for stations. Within the player, you can search for stations by genre or location, while on play.it's website you can also search by Station name. Results are organized by relevance, depending on your search query.
Q: How do I access my listening history? When you are logged in play.it will record your listening history within the player and on your profile page. You can view your history by song or station or both.
Q: How long is my history stored? The history in the player retains the last 25 songs or stations that you've listened to for each session. Closing a session will erase the history from the player. Your profile page will retain the most recent stations you listened to indefinitely.
Q: Can other users view my history? Your history is visible to all who visit your Profile Page.
Q: What is the point of presets? Like most radios, play.it allows logged-in users to set links to frequently-listed stations as presets. Clicking these links will automatically start playing that station.
Q: How do I add a station to my presets? On the player, there is a Station Information section. In this there's a link to "Add to Presets".
Q: How do I change my presets? The Presets tab on the player takes you to a page where you can manage your presets. On this page you can remove, change the order of, and play your presets.
Q: How many presets can I set? We tried this ourselves, and couldn't find a limit. So we asked our tech team, who said you can save at least 50 presets. If you need more than that, maybe you should just take a look at the entire directory again! To see all your presets, click on the "PRESETS" button at the bottom of the player.
Q: How do I delete a preset station? In addition to being able to delete presets from the Presets tab, you can remove a station from your presets by listening to the station and pressing the “Remove from Presets” link in the Station Information window, or by visiting your profile on play.it and pressing the Remove button.
Settings The settings tab offers users the ability to manage general settings of the player: connection speed, default volume, and auto-login, while providing links to manage song alerts and Profile pages.
Q: How can I set my connection speed preference?
You can choose your preferred internet connection speed in the settings tab. From the player, simply click "SETTINGS" and choose between narrowband (dial-up) or broadband (high-speed).
Alternatively, you can click on the word "Broadband" or "Narrowband" in the player to toggle the setting.
Q: When the player launches, the volume is too high/low.
In addition to be able to adjust volume manually on the player’s main page, the Settings tab allows you to change the default volume level (0-100, 100 is loudest) of the player.
Q: Why do I have to log-in when re-launching the player? If you would like to enable auto-login, make sure you have properly set this feature in the Settings tab of the player.
Q: How do I share one of my stations with a friend? Every station has a dedicated Station Page on the play.it website. You can forward this unique URL however you'd like, or you can use the built in share tools, such as the Share button in the player or by generating a widget to put on any of your social software profiles or blogs.
Q: Do I have to register to use play.it? No. play.it is free to all users. We respect your choice to remain anonymous and don't expect anything from you other than to enjoy our service. But with registration comes many great benefits.
Q: How do I register? Simply click on the log-in link on the top right of the player or website. Prompts will guide you through the process.
Q: What are the benefits of registering with play.it? What Is available to a user when registered or logged-in that wouldn't otherwise be?
Q: What do you do with my registration information? Nothing. Under no circumstances will any of your information be sold, leased or "lost". We value your privacy and will protect it like our own.
Q: Why are songs I didn't select showing up in my stream? play.it is based on tertiary radio programming, allowing you program radio stations from the ground up. Based on the artists, albums and songs that you choose, play.it will pull from its vast archive and recommend songs that are similar to your tastes, introducing you and your listeners to new music all day long. If you do not "program" with enough music to fill a 24-hour period, then play.it will fill in space with its recommendations. The result is a unique Radio Station inspired by your tastes, broadcast to the world.
Q: Why is there advertising in my stream? Can I deactivate advertising? Advertising allows you to listen to music for free! The advertisements used in play.it are designed to seamlessly integrate with your preferences, so they are relevant to the things you like. And, no. You can't deactivate the ads.
Q: How much advertising will I be subjected to? You will only hear advertisements approximately 5 minutes an hour, and a pre-roll will play for every 10th station you change to.
Q: Why is my player falling asleep? The play.it player will stop streaming music if it is left unattended for over two hours. Unattended means if your computer goes into sleep mode and/or there is no one clicking on the player. The reason for this is there are costs associated with playing the internet radio you love, and we want to make sure when the music is playing, there is someone there to enjoy it. If play.it is streaming for 130 minutes without a single click on the player, a warning prompt will appear that reads: “Your player is about to fall asleep. Just move your mouse over this message to keep listening!” If you don’t mouse over the player, five minutes later, the player will go to sleep.
Q: How do I prevent my player from falling asleep? The play.it player will never fall asleep for active listeners. Simply mousing over the player will prevent the player from getting tired. With so many features available to interact with, there’s little reason why the player would go unattended for over two hours!
Q: I received an error that reads “This station is unavailable from your current location”. Why? Due to strict licensing laws, play.it can only be accessed from within the United States. If you see this error, you must be accessing the player from another country. While play.it is irreplaceable, we recommend you try out endless personalized radio stations and discover more music at www.last.fm as an alternative.
Q: My player won't start. What can I do? Since the player opens up as a new browser window, your pop-up blocker may be preventing the player from opening. If you have a pop-up blocker on your system be sure to enable pop-ups for cbsradio.com and play.it in your browser preferences and in your pop-up blocker software. If this doesn't help, try re-installing the Flash software for your browser.
Q: My audio is stopping, or stuttering. What can I do?
Q: I'm using AOL Client 9.0 or 9.1 and I'm having problems with the player. What can I do?
Q: My presets keep disappearing in Firefox. Can I do something to prevent this?
Q: Clearing your Flash Player cache Right click in the middle of your player, then select the "Settings" option. Click on the folder icon tab, and you will see this window.
Move the slider all the way down to "0 KB". Confirm by clicking "OK".
After clearing the cache you may immediately set it back to its previous setting. Then please close all your browser windows and restart the player in a new instance of your browser. For more information, please consult Macromedia.
Q: I received an Adobe 'Local Storage' pop-up. What does it mean? This messaging is part of the Adobe Flash player, and this URL explains everything related to Local Storage Settings.