Re: Powergold Music Scheduler 11.02 Keygen
Hedy Madrid
The dramatic fast-to-slow segue is always one of the challenges of music scheduling. Do you let a tempo crash happen and try to finesse it with the presentational elements between the songs? Would you rather stairstep your way down over the course of several songs, perhaps making your Classic Hits station too slow, or your Adult Contemporary station too hot, in the process?
Music scheduling systems are employed to sequence music at radio stations. Although these systems were originally implemented by manual index card methods, since the late 1970s they have exploited the efficiency and speed of digital computers. They are essential tools for broadcasting by music radio stations.
Many people believe that disc jockeys at radio stations are responsible for choosing the music which is heard on their shows. In reality, playlists for each hour of the day have usually been generated in advance by a radio station's program director using a music scheduling system. This ensures that the station programming is optimal and adheres to the policies and objectives of the station's management. These policies and objectives are usually designed to please the greatest number of people inside the radio station's demographic target, and garner the best ratings possible for the radio station. However, there are some radio stations, for example those of BBC, which do allow most (but not all) disc jockeys to choose the music themselves without obligations, as these stations cover an eclectic range of genres. In addition, shows from resident/guest disc jockeys (particularly on mainstream stations) also do not need the program director's opinion for their playlists.
The first widely used commercial music scheduler for radio is Selector, originally written by Dr. Andrew Economos of Radio Computing Services, Inc, in 1979. A-ware MusicMaster (called Musicscan at the time) followed in 1983. The third most commonly used music scheduler, Powergold, was released in 1988. Today, Selector, MusicMaster and PowerGold are the three most widely used music scheduling applications in broadcasting.
Scheduling, in the general radio broadcasting sense, is the placement of content against a linear timeline for transmission on a broadcast station. This content may include not only music, but also commercial advertisements, station identifiers and promotional jingles. Commercial advertisements, called spots in radio lingo, are scheduled by their own separate scheduling system, called a 'traffic system' which keeps track of monetary considerations. The music schedule, non-music schedule (jingles, promos) and the commercial schedule are later merged into a single schedule (called the log) to guide what must be played on the station on a minute-by-minute basis.
How would you categorise all of this? Is it okay to have your Old Recurrent list spanning 10 years of music, or do we need to separate them out a bit more? Do we categorise it based on how much of a great song it is, or how old it is?
The more song categories you have, the more format clocks you need, which is luckily very easy when you have a main format clock with several different variants that you then alternately schedule in a rotating clock grid. You can find more information in a previous article about Contemporary Hit Radio music scheduling & format clocks. I hope this is helpful for now, but do let us know if you have any more questions about music categories for your music scheduling.
Is your music perfect?You think everything well established in the scheduler, you are doing everything at best, nothing to do, so satisfied? If you are the No1, and the others all well behind don't read further.
We will beat you, Hon. Maybe the wise ones feel that there are some reserves. Maybe the music could be better. Even if you are the No1, there could be something that would make you even better. This is normal, you are right. I cannot promise You that P!nk will sing a song just for Your Station [I tried once but failed - on the exclusive part :)] but there is a lot one can do to improve music. Even your music scheduler consultant is able to oversee things, and sometimes your current practice is not matching to market demands. Do not worry it is normal - while you are fighting against this.
Music Scheduling as a ScienceWell, for example, integrating market related statistical facts into your daily playlist(s) is a real challenge. It is very hard to sum it up in some sentences, but imagine: your music staff has AMTs, Call Outs, Online research, competitor playlists, web info, new releases, LAB, and so on. But the clock remains 60 minutes long. The programing girls and boys have to set the content accordingly, considering these factors, creating perfect rotation, artist appearance and so on. If you rely on your own, this is not funny.
Music Scheduling as an ArtOoh, programming and music people love this! As I have heard several times: radio programming is a "black box". Why? Because it cannot be characterized like finance or sales, it is pure magic. The ART reveals feel and flow - this is very important in terms of your music. In our consulting practice the artistic part in music scheduling comes AFTER the technical / statistical routine - namely applying science. How about adapt ourselves to your current practice and show you how you can do your job more effective and efficient? We do not want to constrain obligatory methods - the result matters.
When both attribute set right you will be able to win easier. Nevertheless if you think that better music alone makes you win, you will fail. Anyone can out-music you anytime. Eat this.
Some music formats we love to consult to
AC / Soft AC / Top40 / CHR / Hot AC & Co
Music Schedulers we are fluent: PowerGold, MusicMaster, RCS Selector. These are respected TradeMarks. Believe or not our Selector Consultant Team knows where to click in G Selector Family and have seen Classic DOS based 12+ versions, too... ;-)
Some CHR/Top40 considerationsMusic industry is a seasonal business. We believe that this should not disturb your station's overall performance. Do you know why your music people were so nervous in February? The lack of good hits causes this phenomenon. Weak music in TOP40 & CHR slides listenership and brings in trouble. Then comes the burn factor. Smart Music Programmers plan this well ahead and form their music rotation / clock structure accordingly. We show you numerous music tactics worked in our Programming Knowledge Base for MusicMaster, PowerGold and Selector. Of course we apply these settings into your scheduler / music database if you send us a backup.
Happy programming!
The Radio Consulting Network Music Team: Selector Consultants, Musicmaster Consultants and Powergold Consultants.
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Creator is capable of producing much more controlled and sophisticated scheduling than a basic random shuffle of your music. Your listening audience will appreciate the difference. Here are some examples of what is possible:
Creator Pro ($299) supports an unlimited number of music categories and spot groups, voice tracking and advertisement (spot) summaries, advanced song separation rules, and all the features listed in the table below. Creator Pro works best with Studio Pro for a complete professional broadcasting solution.
Overflow by instructs the scheduler to add additional songs to create an artificial/explicit overflow. It can only be used with Fill with Random Items and Fill with Music, and only when inifinite/fill is checked.
For hard and soft timing, enter the fixed time as required. Please note that fixed times in hour templates are always relative to the top of the scheduled hour. For example, a fixed time of 00:05:00 will be turned into 07:05:00 when the scheduler uses the template to generate a 07:00:00 hour.
In the music template, you tell the scheduler how to pick the music for the generated hour playlists. Typically, this involves specifying one or more library folders (acting as categories, or rotations).
If you are using an external scheduler (e.g. MusicMaster, Powergold, Music1, etc.), use a music template to specify the file names and options for your imported playlists. You can also mix internal and external scheduling (use import playlists for some blocks, and the internal scheduler for the other blocks).
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