MusicMaster Blog

by Paul Ziino

MusicMaster offers lots of options when it comes to Optimum Goal Scheduling. There are goals for song and keyword separation, goals for numeric fields to get the highest or lowest scores, goals for hour and shift exposure on keywords and songs, and more. Today we focus on the goal of Optimum Rule Performance.

In your rule tree you’ll find this goal under the Available Rule Types/Optimum Goal Scheduling/Song Goals.

Click and drag that goal into the Optimum Goal Scheduling folder under any of your categories in the MusicMaster Rule Tree.

Here’s how it works. Every song in the active library has a score indicated in its Performance field. This score is calculated by the average number of times MusicMaster has attempted to schedule that song before it is plotted in a log. The higher the Performance score, the more difficult it is for that song to auto-schedule. Open a category, add the Performance field to your grid, and sort by it. You’ll see the songs that are easiest to auto-schedule (lowest Performance score) and most difficult to auto-schedule (highest score).

In the images above you can see that “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Dude Looks Like a Lady” are much easier to schedule than “Already Gone, “Live and Let Die,” and “Listen to What the Man Said.”

Based on the songs we see in those images, if MusicMaster is given the choice between “Play the Funky Music” and “Crumblin’ Down,” and all other things are considered equal between the two songs, Optimum Rule Performance goal would dictate that “Crumblin’ Down” will be favored because it is more difficult to schedule. The goal gives preference to songs with higher Performance scores because those songs are more difficult to schedule (e.g. takes more attempts on average to schedule). With those two songs, it is likely more difficult to schedule the Mellencamp tune because there are more songs by that artist in our library than there are by Wild Cherry.

When you look at Performance scores, it’s all relative to the other songs in the category. If you have some songs with scores of 10 or 20 and others with scores of 2000 or 2500, what makes those with the higher score so much more difficult to auto-schedule? Is it an overabundance of that artist in the library and the separation for that artist is too great? Is it because you are limiting slow songs too much in a library that is heavily coded as slow? Is it due to incorrect coding, keywording, or dayparting? With all other factors considered and adjusted as you see fit, Optimum Rule Performance can help get those harder-to-schedule songs to plot a little more frequently.

Have questions on this or any other MusicMaster Scheduling Goals? Make sure to reach out to your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant for help.