- Each CD shall contain no more than 60 minutes of primetime sounds.
- Each CD shall feature at least one artist no longer with us and at east one artist with a fully intact mortal coil. Bonus points for an obit song or two from someone recently deceased.
- Each CD will contain at least one song released in current year.
- Each CD shall come with at least five square inches of original cover art 
- Each CD shall contain the work of an artist seen performing live by the compiler within the last 365 days.
- The CD may be mixed but gaps are fine. Bonus points for track separations on the CD.
- Further bonus points will be awarded for puns and topicality tie-ins to 2016. 
- Good juxtapositioning of genres will curry favour in a big way.
- And there simply must be at least one Christmas cracker in each mix, though if that ends up being Ronan Keating's Fairytale of New York I promise never to talk to you again.