Making a podcast RSS feed for iTunes

Question

I'm building an RSS feed using PHP and want it to show up nicely in iTunes.

• How do I format the RSS feed so that iTunes likes it?
• Are there any special tags that I should use?
• What is the best way to submit it to the iTunes Directory (just once, or resubmit periodically to keep it "fresh")?
• What are some best practices, tips and tricks to make the feed prominent in the iTunes Store?

Answer 1

The RSS feed should be formatted like any other with enclosures. There are hundreds of resources on the web describing how to make such a feed.

This here tells you about the iTunes-specific tags needed in your RSS feed.

Note, Apple has seriously broken podcast support in iTunes 9, so don't get discouraged if it doesn't appear to work properly: it's likely Apple's fault.

Answer 2

I've created a small PHP library for this, you can find it here .

Here's an example:

use iTunesPodcastFeed\Channel;
use iTunesPodcastFeed\FeedGenerator;
use iTunesPodcastFeed\Item;

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

// SETUP CHANNEL
$title = 'Read2Me Daily Curated Articles';
$link = 'https://read2me.online';
$author = 'NYTimes and Medium';
$email = 'hello@read2me.online';
$image = 'https://d22fip447qchhd.cloudfront.net/api/widget/static/images/default-thumbnail.png';
$explicit = false;
$categories = [
    'News',
    'Technology',
    'Culture',
    'Entrepreneurship',
    'Productivity'
];
$description = 'Daily curated articles from New York Times and Medium';
$lang = 'en';
$copyright = 'The New York Times Company and The Medium Company';
$ttl = 43200; // 12 hours in seconds

$channel = new Channel(
    $title, $link, $author, $email,
    $image, $explicit, $categories,
    $description, $lang, $copyright, $ttl
);

// SETUP EPISODE
$title = "Trump Says Disclosure of Mueller Questions in Russia Probe Is ‘Disgraceful’";
$fileUrl = 'https://s3.read2me.online/audio/www-nytimes-com-2018-05-01-us-politics-trump-mueller-russia-questions-html-7e9601.mp3';
$duration = '2:18';
$description = 'WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday said it was “disgraceful” that questions the special counsel would like to ask him were publicly disclosed, and he incorrectly noted that there were no questions about collusion. The president also said collusion was a “phony” crime.';
$date = 1525177808;
$filesize = 828387;
$mime = 'audio/mpeg';

$item = new Item(
    $title, $fileUrl, $duration,
    $description, $date, $filesize, $mime
);
$item2 = clone $item; // just to give you an idea of how it works

// SETUP FEED
$feed = new FeedGenerator($channel, ...[$item, $item2]);

// OUTPUT XML
header('Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8');

print $feed->getXml();