Dated URLs for Radio NZ audio

At the moment on the Radio NZ site all the audio for a programme appears in the following format:

www.radionz.co.nz/audio/progamme/trackname

This is reflected in our CMS with audio appearing in one folder. Due to the number of audio items we now have in each folder (and growing each day) it is getting difficult to manage.

Starting today, we are migrating to a date-based system for audio URLs. They'll follow this format:

www.radionz.co.nz/audio/programme/year/month/day/trackname

Some programmes may only have a year or year/month structure, depending on how often it is broadcast.

This is being done programme by programme and may take a month or two to complete, as we have to change the pages that list the audio as well.

The first programme to use this format is Saturday Morning with Kim Hill.

One challenge in the process was the task of moving assets from the old structure to the new.

A Squiz developer has written a script that does the job for us.

move_assets_to_dated_folders.php /path/to/radionz 26411 audio_item created day

This command moves all the audio items under asset number 26411 into year/month/day folders based on the date the asset was created. At the moment the created folders are under construction, but I have asked for a parameter so they can be made live instead.

We need to do this now before we extend the time-frame audio is available to the public (1 - 4 weeks at present). It won't be possible to move the content later on without breaking links.