by Jason Snell
Nicecast is dead, but there are other options
On Thursday Rogue Amoeba announced that its venerable internet radio streaming app, Nicecast, was being discontinued. The era of streaming your own Internet radio stations was a long time ago, and the Internet has mostly moved on. Nicecast is an old 32-bit app that’s at the point where it either needs a major update or retirement, and its user base isn’t big enough to merit the update. (32-bit apps like Nicecast will probably be deprecated beginning with the next version of macOS.)
Which is not to say that Nicecast doesn’t still have its users—if you listen to a live stream from The Incomparable or Relay FM, for example, it’s almost certainly being transmitted from a Mac to the streaming server via Nicecast. I use Nicecast along with Rogue Amoeba’s Loopback and Audio Hijack to do all of my live streaming.
Fortunately, Rogue Amoeba is well aware of this use case:
While Nicecast is now retired, we are considering future solutions to help users broadcast to more modern streaming options. In particular, we know many podcasters provide a live stream using Nicecast, and hope to eventually provide a more comprehensive solution for that use case.
I look forward to seeing what Rogue Amoeba might come up with to allow us to keep streaming audio for live podcast sessions. In the meantime, Rogue Amoeba has posted a more detailed item showing how to use Audio Hijack and Loopback with the free Mac streaming app Ladiocast to broadcast live streams without Nicecast.