MusicMaster Blog

by Chris Hulsether

When you are evaluating the sound of your station, do consider looking at the history browser in MusicMaster? This can be a powerful tool to determine what you have played and how the sound of the station is defined.

Today I want to point out the advanced graphs in your History Browser to evaluate how your station sounds with a more visual touch.

You can use these graphs to see how certain Core Artists play throughout a day, week, month, or longer. This can be a great way to determine things like: “Am I playing my Core artists enough? Are they bunching up in certain Dayparts and not spread out throughout the day?”

Or, if you use Sound codes and you want to know what the balance is on Rock songs compared to Pop songs or how many songs coded as Old play through your week, the advanced graph options are an easy way to see this.

To get to your History Browser, go to Dataset/History Browser.

Then, make your choices on the time frame, categories, filters, and how you want the data displayed.

Here is a great video to walk you through that setup. Click Here

Once you have your History Browser set to the Time Period, Categories, Filters, and display settings, you can set your advanced graph to a variety of options. Look for the drop-down in the lower left corner of your History Browser.

Now, maybe you want to look at the log that was just recently scheduled to see when your superstar core artist played through the day.

I set up the History browser to filter only my Superstar-coded artists and use the Artist Keyword (All) Display Mode. This is the Spins By Hour graph.

This example shows how Morgan Wallen played throughout that day. If I find Morgan Wallen important, I may be alarmed that I go four hours without a Morgan Wallen song. I can go back and make changes in the schedule editor before that log actually goes on the air.

What if I want to see how much airplay last week was dedicated to Hard Rock on my Classic Rock station? I set the Time Period for that week and set the Display Mode to Sound. Then set my advanced graph to Air Time Density. This will show the percentage of airtime the target (sound code) played in relation to the total Time Period chosen.

This shows 74% of my airplay in my week was Hard Rock. If you think this might be too much and you want your station to have a lighter sound, you can now see how your library needs to be adjusted to emphasize other sound codes.

Maybe you just took over this database and you want to know how your Categories are used across a week or longer. In this example, I set up a week’s worth of history with my music categories and Category Usage display mode and then set the advanced graph to Spins density. I can click on each category, and this will show the percentage of spins the target (Category) played in relation to the total Time Period chosen. In my Classic Rock station, if I think I need my station to be more 80’s and 90’s instead of 60’s and 70’s, this can tell me where I am at and how much work I need to do.

You may also want to see the song play history by play, like in the history graph. You could set up history for a week or more, set the display mode to Individual Songs, and use the Play History By Play advanced graph. This will show a history graph with only those dates that had plays, with a colored circle in each hour of play. The darker color in the circle indicates the quarter-hour that the song played in. A total will be listed at the bottom of the graph.

Knowledge is power and advanced graphs can give you a bunch of Knowledge about your station. If you’d like to learn more, contact your Music Scheduling Consultant.