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MusicMaster Blog

Software Giant Strengthens Sales and Support Departments posted on January 7th, 2015

Brookfield, WI – MusicMaster announced today the addition of Bradley Bender to enhance the sales and support departments. Brad brings with him a strong background in strategy, IT and Finance.

Brad Bender

“I am delighted to have the opportunity to be part of this outstanding team of wonderfully dedicated professionals,” commented Bradley Bender.

Prior to joining the MusicMaster team, Bradley was Manager of Operational Accounting and a Manager of the Network Infrastructure team at Wyndham Jade, a technology based events and Travel Company which specializes in convention and trade show housing and registration, meetings, and corporate travel. Mr. Bender is an SMU Cox School of Business alumnus with distinction and has studied at the University of Texas at Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management.

MusicMaster President, Joe Knapp, adds, “While rapidly expanding the MusicMaster family this year, our search was focused on those amazing people who are blessed with a healthy balance of passion, patience and curiosity. Our goal is to diversify our team with professionals who bring with them a broad range of talents and experiences. Brad Bender, with his extensive background in accounting and information technology, fits our profile perfectly.  He’s a geek like me and we’re lucky to have him on board!”

MusicMaster was founded by Joe Knapp in 1983 and continues to be the world’s largest Windows-based music scheduling software for radio and television stations.

Additional information about the company, our software, partners, and customers can be found at www.MusicMaster.com.

In Case You Missed It: 2fer Tuesdays posted on December 29th, 2014

by Paul Ziino

Lots of stations do a 2fer Tuesday feature or other artist double-shots. Here’s how to do this in MusicMaster. (Read more.)

In Case You Missed It: Backups posted on December 15th, 2014

By Paul Ziino

After a long day’s work of editing logs, adjusting rotations, building clocks, and analyzing your data, it’s always a good idea to make a backup. Here’s how… (Read more.)

Feeling like Lewis Hamilton with Arabella 92.9 posted on December 10th, 2014

A unique music mix of “Super Oldies and Austrian Pop” – that’s Arabella 92.9 in Vienna. But not only. Arabella 92.9’s team gets also very creative when it comes to organizing events. One of their “Talk of the town” activities this year was the “Vienna Bobby-Car race”, the largest Formula “Bobby Car” race in town.

BobbyCar

Want to see their listeners dressed like Lewis Hamilton? Check out the party’s pictures.

During our last visit at Arabella 92.9 we’ve had the pleasure to enjoy a cup of coffee with Isabella Kettner (Assistant PD) and Ralph Waldhauser (PD).

Arabella

Thanks for joining the MusicMaster family in Austria! Keep on racing…

MusicMaster Programs Chicago’s Finest Rock – One Song At A Time posted on December 9th, 2014

Any good parent knows you’re not supposed to have a favorite child, but MusicMaster founder and CEO, Joe Knapp, does admit to having a favorite MusicMaster radio station, CBS Radio’s WXRT in Chicago.

93xrtWe spent a few days with them this month helping out with their transition to the latest version of MusicMaster RealTime for Windows. This amazing radio station has been playing “free form” rock music since the 1970’s. After all these years, the station is still hand-crafted, one song at a time, by the incredible lineup of air talent under the expert supervision of Program Director, Norm Winer. MusicMaster RealTime is a special log editor developed specifically for use in the studio for just-in-time music scheduling. The original design was created and perfected back in the mid-1980’s at KBCO in Boulder, Colorado with the help of then-PD Dennis Constantine. WXRT in Chicago was one of the very first stations to use the system, and one of very few still using it today. Of course, the system works best when you have air talent who are all perfectly in tune with the music and the audience, which is certainly true for each and every member of the WXRT air staff. The depth of their knowledge of rock music and the Chicago area would take your breath away! Along with Joe Knapp, WXRT’s MusicMaster music scheduling consultant, Drew Bennett, and MusicMaster Marketing Director, Melanie Ross, were also on hand, all bidding a fond farewell to WXRT’s Music Director and Operations Manager, John Farneda, who exits this legendary station after decades of service.

93xrt_groupMusicMaster Vice President, Scott Wirt, even drove down from Milwaukee to help out. He’s pictured here sitting in the main control room where all the magic happens!

93xrt_scottwirt

Newcap Genius Days – Toronto and Moncton posted on December 8th, 2014

torontologosThe MusicMaster Genius Sessions were on tour in Eastern Canada with Newcap. First stop was in Toronto at the Boom and Flow studios! Joining Malcolm Sinclair was Steve Jones VP of Programming, Rick Tompkins from Sudbury, Amy Ballard and Dan Youngs from Ottawa, Adam Spencer was in town from Fredericton (we’re still wondering how he scored Leaf tickets), Troy McCallum and Wayne Webster of Boom, and Paul Parhar and Cory Balash of Flow! Super day, amazing food and great people!

monctonlogos

From Toronto it was off to beautiful Moncton for another great day with Joey Arsenault from Fredericton, Kayleigh Butt from St. John’s, Corey Tremere from Charlottetown, Rod Martens from Saint John, Mel Sampson and Paddy Quinn from Miramichi, Anna Zee and Trevor Wallworth of Halifax, and our hosts Adam McLaren and Scotty Mars from Moncton. It was Malcolm’s first time getting Papa John’s pizza because they don’t have one where he lives!

Thanks again to all the amazing folks from Newcap having us visit their stations!

Newcap Genius Days – Edmonton and Vancouver posted on December 7th, 2014

Our MusicMaster team made stops in Canada during the week of November 17th. President / CEO Joe Knapp and Music Scheduling Consultant Jerry Butler visited with Newcap Radio teams in Vancouver and Edmonton for Genius Day Seminars. Staff from numerous Newcap markets were in attendance at both events. President / CEO Joe Knapp worked through various areas of the program answering questions and analyzing individual databases and questions specific to the programming team’s needs.

newcap_1

Edmonton – Back Row: Jeff Murray, Mark Cappis, Heather Klages, Travis Currah, Kurt Price, Brent Shelton, Johnathan Best, Todd James, Joe Knapp, Stuart McIntosh, John Roberts, Lucas Banack; Front Row: Jordan Rae, Al Thompson, Kathryn Chase, Abbey White, Jackie Rae Greening, Marisa Jodoin, and Stephen Keppler

newcap_6Vancouver – Steve Cassidy, Paul Sereda, Dwayne Bishop, Sandra Klaric, Kat Carter, Paul Kaye, Joe Knapp, Roo Phelps, Rickie Tyler, Casey Clarke, and David Larse

Classic Hip-Hop, Urban AC, and Jack FM posted on December 1st, 2014

By Sean Ross

A lot has happened since I last wrote about the rise of the classic Hip-Hop format, which, if you’re counting, was 19 days ago.

iHeart Media’s WSOL (V101.5) Jacksonville, Fla., segued from its longtime urban AC position to “Throwback hip-hop & R&B,” although it kept the syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show.

Sister KATZ-FM St. Louis retired a 35-year-old urban AC brand, Majic, to switch to a similar format.

Dallas got the format’s first head-to-head war, sort of, between Cumulus and Radio One. The “sort of” is because Cumulus hasn’t declared a format change. It’s positioning the change at KLIF-FM (Hot 93.3) as a “hip-hop holiday.”

Atlanta got three different classic hip-hop stations, all of them on lower-powered FM translators, courtesy of Cumulus, Radio One, and veteran PD/owner Steve Hegwood. This time, Cumulus did declare a format change.

Cox’s long-running urban AC WCFB (Star 94.5) Orlando is now “celebrating the holidays with throwback hip-hop and R&B.” Star didn’t officially declare a change until Monday, but RadioInsight.com reports that the station has dropped syndicated host Tom Joyner.

Classic hip-hop is now displaying all the hallmarks of a format boom, at least in terms of industry reaction. Several markets end up with more than one. Multiple stations flip within hours of each other, trying to claim the space. Somebody walks away from a more-than-viable franchise to get there before anybody else can. While several of the stations that changed were the second urban ACs in their market, Orlando’s Star was format-exclusive.

If you’re willing to start the clock with WBQT (Hot 96.9) Boston, the “Rhythmic Hot AC” that was built on classic hip-hop, but also plays recurrents and some rhythmic pop, the format boom began 18 months ago. So classic hip-hop has reached the format boom stage at least as quickly as the “adult hits” format that galvanized the industry a decade ago. The original Bob-FM was about 18 months old in Canada when stations began walking away from viable formats on its behalf. The U.S. format frenzy took place about three years in, when oldies WCBS-FM New York became “Jack FM” for two years before returning to the now-renamed “greatest hits” format.

The adult-hits land rush also offers some likely answers to questions about the wisdom of the classic hip-hop version. Is it a viable long-term format? You stopped reading about the adult-hits boom many years ago, but it remains a significant format, especially in the markets where it most made sense in the first place – Cleveland, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, etc. Should somebody blow up a viable station to go there? Not always, especially if you’re iconic of something else, as WCBS-FM was.

New York’s Jack-FM had a particularly awkward transition, alienating those CBS-FM listeners who might actually have enjoyed the new format. By contrast, Star 94.5 is currently doing a very adult-friendly version of the format, with R&B songs that could also play on urban AC these days, and a very mainstream distillation of old-school hip-hop. V101.5 also has some precedent on its side. More than a decade ago, it declared itself “Urban Hot AC,” with fewer ballads and more Gap Band oldies.

Urban AC PDs have wanted to figure out their next move beyond that for years now. The format’s initial attempts to play rap were disastrous – even the generation that grew up with hip-hop seemed to have a different expectation and usage for existing urban AC stations. Gradually, a handful of titles – most of them from the genre’s first decade – began to play on urban AC without incident. But starting fresh is a much more attractive idea to some PDs than figuring out how to segue from Maxwell to 50 Cent, which some urban ACs have tried.

WCFB’s transition, should it be permanent, is likely to raise questions for some about the future viability of traditional urban AC. WCBS-FM may be the guide here, too. It came back two years later and leads the market today. A decade later, the “greatest hits” format has had a great second life in PPM and moved into the ‘80s (and even early ‘90s), regardless of the success of adult hits. In Cleveland, greatest-hits and adult-hits stations rule the market side by side.

The question is what urban AC becomes if there’s another adult format perched below it. Is there still a need to make the existing urban AC format younger and hotter? Or should it now double-down on its original franchise? I’m confident that somebody who grew up with Earth, Wind & Fire, Michael Jackson, Maze, and the Gap Band has not woken up and decided they never liked them. Those listeners grew up glued to radio, and remain its most reliable source of time spent listening today. They don’t mind a little hip-hop, but they’re not looking for a steady diet of Jay Z and SWV.

The happiest possible outcome would be if urban radio emerged with three viable tentpole formats, each spaced 15-20 years apart from each other. When PPM measurement arrived, both mainstream urban and urban AC were often crowded, with some major markets having two of each. Whatever issues PPM may have had in capturing urban radio listening, it has never been kind to any overcrowded format. Three urban formats, each with satisfied P1s who aren’t punching between two identical stations, might have a chance.

As for the long-term prospects of classic hip-hop, I can only say that 19 days later, the listener excitement about hearing these songs on the radio again is even greater. And by week’s end, the classic hip-hop boom is likely to get another boost when comedian Chris Rock’s Top 5 is released. The trailer uses recent hits, but the title stems from a discussion of the top five rappers of all-time. The movie is still five days away from release, but if loving classic hip-hop (and not the newer stuff) is portrayed as a sign of adult malaise, as the premise and the pre-release publicity suggests, oldies and classic rock only thrived after being portrayed that way in The Big Chill. Somebody will get in the car and drive home wanting to hear Eric B & Rakim.

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