MusicMaster Blog

Hour and Sweep Opener Separation Rules

By Paul Ziino

A customer called and said, “my announcer complains when he has the same song coming out of his commercial break twice in an air shift. Any way to prevent that?” Starting in MMPro version 8.0.6 you can!

You will find Sweep Opener Separation in your Available Rule Types under Song/History Rules. Make this an active rule and you can tell MusicMaster to not play that song coming out of a sweep marker either for a specified amount of time or for the rest of the shift.

As displayed, we prevent that song from playing after a sweep marker element for the next five hours. If you’re only concerned about the song playing out of a sweep marker for a shift (as set in Dataset/Schedule/Shift Editor) then you would select that option.

There’s also a rule that does the same thing but coming out of the top of the hour. You’ll find Hour Opener Separation also under Song/History Rules. Like the Sweep Opener Separation rule, you can either dictate an amount of time or have it reset based on shift.

That same customer asked a follow up. “We’re classic rock and the announcer doesn’t want to talk about Pink Floyd coming out of a commercial break twice in his shift.” We’ve made that a possibility. too. Under Keyword Field Rules you’ll find Hour Opener and Sweep Opener Separation rules. They work just like the Song rules, except they’re based on a keyword. So long as all the songs by Pink Floyd share the same artist keyword, we’re able to prevent that keyword from playing out of a second commercial break (sweep marker) during the shift.

For the Sweep Opener rules to work, you must use Sweep Markers in your clocks. These can be set on lognotes, traffic merges or timing elements by checking the Sweep Marker box for that position in the clock.

Need a hand with anything MusicMaster? Just call your friendly MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant!