News briefings technical requirements

We can onboard your news briefing to Google Assistant if it adheres to both our eligibility and availability guidelines and the following technical requirements:

News briefings on Assistant specifications

Align your content with the following specifications. For examples of audio and video news briefings, see the Examples section.

We require the use of tags defined by the iTunes extension, so make sure to include the appropriate xmlns namespace declaration in the <rss> tag at the top of your feed. For details, see the following example:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd">
 The following table provides the specifications for news briefings RSS tags at the <channel> level:
News briefings publication RSS tags at the <channel> level
<title>

Required.

The name of your news content.
<link>

Required.

The fully qualified URL of the homepage of your news content.

Use either Fetch as Google or the Mobile-Friendly Test to test that the homepage is accessible to Googlebot.
<description>

Required.

The description of your news content.
<image>

Required.

An image associated with your news content.

Images require the following:

  • A <url> sub-element that points to a crisp, legible GIF, JPEG, or PNG square aspect image that measures at least 1,400x1,400 pixels. This <url> value must not be blocked from Googlebot.
  • The <title> and <link> sub-element values that are the same as the <title> and <link> elements at the <channel> level.

For details, see the following example:

<image>
  <url>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/logo.png?s=1400</url>
  <title>The Example Times</title>
  <link>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes</link>
</image>
<itunes:block>

Not required.

A tag that protects the feed from public availability on products like iTunes or Google Podcasts.

To enable protection, set the value of <itunes:block> to yes. Any other value has no effect. For more information, see Apple's A podcaster’s guide to RSS.

For details, see the following examples:

  • <itunes:block>yes<itunes:block>
  • <itunes:block>Yes<itunes:block>
<item>

Required.

A tag that contains the details for the news briefings episode, such as the title, description, media file, and duration.

News briefings on Google Assistant only plays the latest news content available, such as content from the most recent <item> element. If you’d like users to access previous news briefings episodes, we suggest you use Google Podcasts.

For details on the required specifications, see News briefings episode RSS tags.
The following table provides specifications for News briefings episode RSS tags at the <item> level:
News briefings episode RSS tags at the <item> level
<title>

Required.

The name of the news briefings episode.
<description>

Required.

The description of the news briefings episode.
<enclosure>

Required.

The file size, type, and location of the news briefings episode.

The <enclosure> element must have the following attributes:

  • length: The media file size in bytes
  • type: The file type for the audio or video news content
    • For audio files, we support the following standard MIME types: .aac, .m4a, .mp4, .mpeg, and .wav.
    • For video files, we support the .mp4 extension, and the video file size must be less than 100 MB. Google Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max support Video news briefings.
    • For more information about supported media types, see Supported media for Google Cast, as this feature adheres to the same specifications.
  • url: The fully qualified URL of the news briefings episode’s audio or video file

For details, see the following examples:

  • <enclosure length="187000" type="audio/mpeg"
url="http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/sample.mp3"/>
  • <enclosure length="200000" type="application/x-mpegurl"
url="http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/sample.m3u8"/>
  • <enclosure length="9000000" type="video/mp4"
url="http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/sample.mp4"/>
<guid>

Required.

A permanently assigned, case-sensitive Global Unique Identifier (GUID) for each news briefings episode.

If your identifier isn’t a fully qualified URL, set the isPermaLink attribute to false.

For details, see the following examples:

  • <guid>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/id/1234567891</guid>
  • <guid isPermaLink="false">abcde-1234567891</guid>
<pubDate>

Required.

The date and time when the news briefings episode was released.

These values are only supported in the RFC 822 format for dates and times. For details, see the following example:

<pubDate>Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:11:46 GMT</pubDate>
<itunes:duration>

Required.

The news briefings episode’s length of time in hours, minutes, and seconds.

You can specify one of the following formats, where H = hours, M = minutes, and S = seconds:

  • HH:MM:SS
  • H:MM:SS
  • MM:SS
  • M:SS
  • S, SS, SSS

For details, see the following examples:

  • <itunes:duration>1:10:00</itunes:duration>
  • <itunes:duration>10:00</itunes:duration>
  • <itunes:duration>180</itunes:duration>

Examples

The following examples show the minimum data set required for audio and video content for news briefings on Google Assistant. They follow RSS 2.0 and all of our technical requirements.

Audio news briefing example

The following is an example of an audio news briefing:

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd"
version="2.0">
  <channel>
   <title>The Example Times</title>
   <link>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes</link>
   <description>The latest news from The Example Times.</description>
   <language>en-us</language>
   <copyright>Copyright 2018 The Example Times – For Personal Use Only</copyright>
   <image>
     <url>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/logo.png?s=1400</url>
     <title>The Example Times</title>
     <link>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes</link>
   </image>
   <itunes:block>yes</itunes:block>
   <item>
     <title>The Example Times Daily News Briefing</title>
     <itunes:title>The Example Times Daily News Briefing</itunes:title>
     <description>Your daily dose of news from The Example Times.</description>
     <guid>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/id/1234567893</guid>
     <enclosure length="4500000" type="audio/mpeg" url="http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/sample.mp3"/>
     <pubDate>Thu, 8 Jun 2018 11:11:00 GMT</pubDate>
     <itunes:duration>300</itunes:duration>
   </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

Video news briefing example

The following is an example of a video news briefing:

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd"
version="2.0">
  <channel>
   <title>The Example Times</title>
   <link>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes</link>
   <description>The latest news from The Example Times.</description>
   <language>en-us</language>
   <copyright>Copyright 2018 The Example Times – For Personal Use Only</copyright>
   <image>
     <url>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/logo.png?s=1400</url>
     <title>The Example Times</title>
     <link>http://www.example.com/theexampletimes</link>
   </image>
   <itunes:block>yes</itunes:block>
   <item>
     <title>The Example Times Daily News Briefing</title>
     <itunes:title>The Example Times Daily News Briefing</itunes:title>
     <description>Your daily dose of news from The Example Times.</description>
     <guid isPermaLink="false">sample-id-2345678901</guid>
     <enclosure length="9000000" type="video/mp4" url="http://www.example.com/theexampletimes/sample.mp4"/>
     <pubDate>Thu, 8 Jun 2018 11:12:00 GMT</pubDate>
     <itunes:duration>300</itunes:duration>
   </item>
  </channel>
</rss>