ABC ABC Country

About Digital Radio

What is Digital Radio?

All your favourite ABC Radio services are now available on digital radio along with three new music stations - ABC Dig Music, ABC Country and ABC Jazz.

Digital Radio is an established broadcast platform in the UK, Europe and parts of Asia and now it's Australia's turn to switch on to digital radio, the next generation of radio broadcasting. Initially, Digital Radio will be available in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth with plans underway for the future extension of services to other capital cities and regional areas.

Digital Radio is not replacing current services; it simply provides another choice in how to receive your ABC Radio.

You will need a 'DAB+ digital radio' to receive digital radio.

Learn more about Digital Radio from the ABC.

Can I receive Digital Radio?

Enter your postcode to find out if you can receive Digital Radio via the Digital Radio Plus website (coverage will grow over time).

You can also view detailed coverage maps for Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney on the ABC Digital Radio website.

Community Features

How do I become a member of ABC Country?

Register for a profile on ABC Country and you can recommend artists and stories, add your own photos, video and audio, add comments without waiting for approval and make connections with like-minded music lovers.

Create a new ABC Country profile here. It only takes a minute! (Note: this is not an ABC-wide profile - it is specific to ABC Country. If you had a profile on the old dig Music website you will need to create a new one here.)

Please observe the site guidelines when adding information to your profile.

I just registered but I can't log-in

When you registered with ABC Country we sent you a confirmation email. You need to click the confirmation link in that email before you can start using your profile on the website.

How do I add my own picture to my profile?

If you are logged-in you can visit your profile page and click on the link 'Change Picture' link below your photo. You can change your user photo as often as you like. While you're there, you can also add some information about yourself to the 'About Me' section of your profile - click the 'Edit About Me' link on the left of the page.

What are Recommendations?

Recommendations are a way for you to highlight the artists you hear played on ABC Country and the stories you read on the website. Clicking the Recommend button will increase the recommendation count for that item, showing its popularity, and your recommendation will appear on your own ABC Country profile. It's a great way to champion the music you love and to connect with ABC Country listeners with similar tastes.

What are Comments?

You can add you own comments to all of the artists and stories on ABC Country - start a conversation or contribute to an on-going discussion. If you're registered and logged-in as a user of ABC Country your comments will appear immediately. Annonymous comments will not appear until they have been approved by the ABC Country Moderators.

What are Tags?

Tags are a quick way of labelling, organising and sharing the content on the ABC Country website. Tags can be added by the ABC Country producers and by you. You could add a musical genre tag such as 'jazz' or 'blues' to an artist page, or an album name or a country of origin... or a tag could simply be a word you would use to describe something. If you click on an individual tag on the ABC Country website you will see all of the site content tagged with that phrase.

How do I add photos, videos or audio?

Once you are registered and logged-in as a user on the ABC Country website you can upload your own musically relevant photos, videos and audio from your own computer. On every story page you will see links to 'Add Audio, Photo or Video' at the top right of the page. Adding an item here will make it show up on that specific page and on your own profile page. You can also add photos, videos and audio directly to your ABC Country profile. Note - uploading video may take a few minutes.

How do I add people to my ABC Country network?

If you are registered and logged-in as a user of ABC Country you can 'add' other users to your 'network'. This is an easy way of connecting with other listeners who may have similar musical tastes. Wherever you see a user name - for example in a list of comments or recommendations on a page - click on the user's name and you will be taken to their profile. Click on the 'Add to my Network' link at the top of their profile to connect with that user. Once you are connected you will be able to message the user and follow their activity on the ABC Country website.

You can easily undo the connection by clicking on the 'Remove from my network' link on their profile page.

I have found a comment offensive, what can I do about it?

All annonymous comments are moderated by the ABC. If you believe a comment is offensive in any way click the 'Alert Moderator' link adjacent to the comment and let us know what the problem is - an ABC moderator will promptly review the flagged comment and check to see if there has been a breach of the ABC's terms of use.

If the moderators feel that the comment you complained about does not break the terms of use, the message will remain on the site. If you still feel that your complaint has not been dealt with satisfactorily you can contact us by clicking here.

At ABC Country we're eager to build and facilitate a vibrant music-related community. To that end we ask users to respect the following guidelines:

• Keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant.
• No defamatory comments.
• Avoid contempt of court.
• Do not incite people to commit any crime, including incitement of racial hatred.
• Avoid breaking a court injunction.
• Do not post content which you've copied from someone else and don't own the copyright.
• Do not post messages that are unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, homophobic or racially offensive.
• No spamming or flooding.
• No personal information (addresses, phone numbers etc.)
• Keep your posts relevant.
• No advertising, promotion of products or services, or posting of web links (URLs).
• No impersonating.
• No inappropriate usernames (vulgar, offensive, etc).

Read the ABC's full terms of use

Videos, pictures and other content on ABC Country

Why are some of the videos on an artist page not correct?

The artist pages on the ABC Country website are automatically created as we play each song. The automated search processes may occasionally include content that is not directly related to the artist - especially if the artist has a generic name such as 'Belly' or 'Wagons'. If you see content that is incorrect please let us know by clickng the 'Alert Moderator' link adjacent to the content. We will review the material and remove it if necessary, in a timely fashion.

How do I find the details of a song I heard on ABC Country

Visit the Just Played page on the ABC Country website to see all the songs played - you can search by date, time and keywords.

I'm a musician, how do i submit a song to ABC Country

If you have music you'd like to submit to be considered for airplay on ABC Country send a CD to:

• ABC Country Digital Radio
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation
• GPO Box 9994
• SYDNEY NSW
• AUSTRALIA 2001

Please note we are unable to accept music submissions via email or links. Due to the large amount of submissions we are unable to respond to individual queries regarding receipt of music or prospective airplay.

We can't promise to play it on-air, but we'll try our best to have a listen.

I'm trying to listen online but I'm getting a 'technical difficulties' recorded announcement

If you hear the recorded message there is probably a problem with the configuration of the media player on your computer. This is most often the case if you are trying to listen with Windows Media Player or via a work/office connection. Please check the following settings:

Windows Media Player:

• With the ABC Country Player open (after choosing Windows Media Player and clicking Listen), right click on the area immediately adjacent to the play/stop/volume controls,
• From the menu, click on 'Options',
• In the Options window, click on 'Network',
• In the Network window, under Protocols, ensure only HTTP is ticked (i.e. untick RTSP/UDP and RTSP/TCP).
• If this does not resolve the problem and you are listening at work you may also need to add a specific HTTP proxy via this window. Please check with your IT department for details.

Please be aware that the availability and reliability of online audio streaming may vary from time to time due to a range of connection factors beyond our control.

How much data am I using when I listen to ABC Country on my computer?

If you're listening via the Windows Media Player option the data rate can vary because we use a technique called multi-bitrate streaming, which automatically uses the highest amount of bandwidth that your connection can handle.

If you're using the Windows Media Player option on the ABC Country website you can right-click on the actual player (near the play/volume buttons etc) and select 'Statistics' to see the current data rate.

The maximum connection speed for all our streams is 128kbps. 1 minute of audio streamed at 128 kbps is equal to downloading 0.9229 Megabytes, so it can be said that the maximum amount of data being used equals approximately 60MB per hour.

For the Windows stream you can decrease the bandwidth used. Check the options in your Windows Media. Please note that lowering the connection speed will reduce the audio quality, but may improve the consistency of your connection. Windows also has a nasty habit of putting these settings back to its default when it auto-updates, so you may need to occasionally check the settings again.

For further assistance please go to the ABC Radio help page.