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MusicMaster @ IBC in Amsterdam posted on September 24th, 2014

IBC, the largest multimedia show in Europe, was held between September 12-17. MusicMaster could be seen at the different stands of our partners like Enco, Scisys, David Systems, AVC and Netia. Kevin Hopkins, Andreas Wissmeyer and Rainer Eichhorn of ON AIR Digital were there to show MusicMaster and meet a lot of our existing clients. Also Jean Claude Frick, Mathieu Habegger and Michael Buholzer of Swiss Media Partners have been there to help on the MusicMaster side.

Like every year, it was a great event and we want to thank all our users and partners who helped and came to see us, shake hands and discuss the future of our industry. It was a pleasure! See y’all next year!

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The lovely Marion Grabler of Bremmedia and Rainer Eichhorn at the David Systems booth

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Rainer Eichhorn and Gene Novacek of Enco are happy about the deep integration with MusicMaster

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The guys are all right: Michael Buholzer, Jean Claude Frick, Rainer Eichhorn, Greg Podsiadlo, Mathieu Habegger and Andi Wissmeyer at the end of a long day on the convention floor

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The great looking MusicMaster direct search window inside the Netia system. This gives users perfect song replacement access with full Rule functionality from within the the play out software. Very cool!

Momentum – Christian Music Broadcasters posted on September 23rd, 2014

Christian music programmers, speakers and artists from around the world gathered in Central Florida’s “City Beautiful” for 3 solid days of connecting God’s Word with God’s people in early September in Orlando, Florida.

MusicMaster’s Marianne Burkett, Jerry Butler and Shane Finch joined hundreds of participants eager to engage the culture with positive music and a message of hope.

On Friday, September 5, MusicMaster Sales and Support Director Shane Finch (below) presented “The Artistry and Science of Music Scheduling” with Christian’s cutting edge music programmers.

cmb1“Momentum” presents many opportunities to socialize with old friends and MusicMaster clients. Pictured below left to right are MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant Jerry Butler, Actor and VSR Record Executive Terry Silverthorn, MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant Marianne Burkett, JOY-FM General Manager Jeff MacFarlane, MusicMaster Sales Director Shane Finch.

image2Christian music superstar David Crowder (below center) shares a “Momentum” moment with MusicMaster’s Shane Finch (below left) and wife Jana Finch (below right).

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NAB Radio Show posted on September 22nd, 2014

Three days of MusicMaster education, entertainment and enlightenment enhanced the fall Radio Show at the Indiana Convention Center and Downtown Indy Marriott in the middle of September.

MusicMaster happily consorted with automation partners ENCO, OMT and Wide Orbit on the exhibit hall trade floor, and hosted a festive hospitality evening for clients and chums.
MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant Jerry Butler (below left) demonstrates Optimum Goal Scheduling to a potential radio programming partner.

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MusicMaster Founder and President, Joe Knapp (below right) visits the ENCO booth and meets a fellow music enthusiast, Jerry Phillips (below left). Jerry is the owner of Big River Broadcasting in Florence, Alabama, and father to the lovely Halley-Phillips Yeager of Big River. Oh, and he’s also son of legendary Sun Records Founder Sam Phillips.

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A stormy summer night in Indy couldn’t keep the revelers away from the jammed MusicMaster hospitality suite at the Downtown Indianapolis Marriott. The highlight was sharing some time with radio legend Scott Shannon of CBS-FM and Scott Shannon’s True Oldies (below center). Radio’s best friend Art Vuolo (below far right) had created a video montage of Scott’s long radio history.

This amazing moment, captured by MusicMaster VP/Media Laurie Knapp, includes (left to right) Sean Ross of Ross On Radio, Steve Resnik of RAMP, Shannon, MusicMaster Founder Joe Knapp, and Art Vuolo.

radioshow3Heather Boethin, Local Sales Manager and Digital Resource Sales Manager of Cox Media, Tulsa (below left) shares a laugh with Scott Shannon of CBS-FM (below right).

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PRPD Recap posted on September 18th, 2014

Jill Sorenson and Aaron Taylor visited the great city of Portland, Oregon for the annual Public Radio Program Directors (PRPD) Conference at the beginning of September. They had an opportunity to visit with many clients discussing how MusicMaster makes their scheduling a breeze. They still squeezed in time to wander the city block known as Powell’s Bookstore and drool over Voodoo Donuts. Really, click on the link if you’ve never seen a Voodoo doughnut! Kudos to host organization Oregon Public Radio (a MusicMaster user) for their hospitality. We look forward to visiting Pittsburgh where the 2015 conference will be held. Until then, a few photos of our MusicMaster friends:

prpd1 – Schnitzer Theatre
2 – The PRPD opened with the March Forth Marching Band
3 – Rik Malone (KFDC), Aaron Taylor, Bill Lueth (KUSC and PRPD Board Member)
4 – Aaron Taylor and Cheryl Dring (WDPR)
5 – Matt Abramovitz (WNYC) and Jill Sorenson
6 – Aaron Taylor and Chris Wienk (WMHT)
7 – Suzanne Bona (Sunday Baroque) and Jill Sorenson

AC and Classic Hits posted on September 17th, 2014

By Sean Ross

There was no intention to “push poll” my dentist. But I was seeing him for the second time in a few weeks, and the same song was playing on AC WLTW (Lite FM) New York, Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.” So I asked, “What do you think about this song on Lite FM?”

“What do you mean?”

I tried to express it as neutrally as possible. “It’s not the kind of song they used to play.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said.

I had one more session with him. At the next appointment, he was playing the Classical station, WQXR.

I related that story to a colleague who is married to a doctor. He was driving her to work and Rihanna’s “Only Girl (In the World)” came on. This prompted her to announce that her office had switched to Oldies/Greatest Hits WCBS-FM after complaints from older patients.

Over the course of the summer Nielsen PPM measurements, WCBS-FM was up 6.3 – 6.4 – 6.9 6-plus. During that same period, Lite was down 7.1 – 6.2 – 6.1. That’s the kind of down month many broadcasters would be thrilled with, of course. It does coincide with a Nielsen press release declaring Classic Hits (still the Arbitron designation both for former Oldies stations, the format I call “Greatest Hits,” and softer Classic Rock outlets alike) to be the upset winner of the “Format of Summer 2014” crown, based on its growth.

Since onetime WLTW programmer Jim Ryan took the PD reins of CBS-FM, and even before, the intent of the station has been pretty clear: assume the format space once occupied by Lite-FM. The ‘80s, once something tolerated grudgingly by Greatest Hits listeners, are nearly the center lane, and the prominent recently hired morning man Scott Shannon is associated with those songs as well. The ‘60s have virtually disappeared, and the early ‘70s are now about once an hour.

It’s not as if WLTW has overtly distanced itself from its previous position, or completely ankled the ‘70s. They still play a handful, and I heard “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker a while ago. I can’t speak for anybody there, but the format sure seems to be “big songs that appeal to adult women.” In the PPM measurement era, there is a tendency by some programmers to ignore niceties of texture in favor of satisfying cume. And Lite FM has always been a little aggressive in that regard.

Under Ryan, WLTW always played songs that seemed to dent the format definition of Mainstream AC as well, some of which later became format standards. The difference is that “Hurts So Good” came over when it was more than a decade old, not less than a year old, like Perry. The song playing against Rihanna on CBS-FM was Van Halen’s “Jump,” an AC staple by a once-edgy act that has had three decades to soften.

As Mainstream AC grapples with just how many songs on Mainstream Top 40 and Hot AC are currently appealing to adult women, Lite FM has finessed that transition better than most. But every AC, no matter how gradually it has brought listeners along, faces the specific peril of a format evolution – new listeners will come in and swell the numbers at first, but one day the old listeners will decide this is no longer their radio station.

The worst-case scenario is in markets where an increasingly successful Adult Top 40 format fulfills the clear 25-plus appetite for “now” among adult women. The Oldies/Greatest Hits format grabs the “then” franchise – still big enough for at least a few stations in any given market. That situation doesn’t yet exist in New York, where WLTW is much bigger than the Hot AC stations. It also doesn’t exist in markets such as Atlanta, Houston, or Washington, D.C., where, despite the success of WCBS-FM, KRTH (K-Earth 101) Los Angeles, and others, no owner is willing to consider the Greatest Hits format on a viable signal. And in markets such as Long Island, San Diego, and Hartford, Conn., new owners have actually steered stations away from “Greatest Hits” to a more Bob- and Jack-FM-like Adult Hits format.

Regardless of how the Mainstream AC format is flanked, it has not just tempo and era to deal with, but also the matter of currents. Rotations at the Greatest Hits format have become bolder lately, following the success of KRTH, whose power ‘80s can play more than 25 times a week. But WLTW is up to 35 times a week on power currents. That’s not a lot, but it’s enough that you might notice hearing the same song on two consecutive visits to a station that never did that.

There’s one more disturbing possibility. With broadcast radio TSL continuing to decline, by most accounts, it is certainly possible that a format with 45-54 appeal, such as Oldies/Greatest Hits, would be hurt less than other, younger-targeted formats. Almost every Greatest Hits outlet looked awesome in the first days of PPM when not all demographic targets were indexing as well. I always root for the format, but I hope we haven’t returned to those days.

I’m not against ACs continuing to contemporize. I help stations with it all the time. I’m fascinated with stations like WALK Long Island, N.Y., and KYXY San Diego that look like Hot ACs in their current rotations (98x a week in KYXY’s case), but have the libraries of a bright AC. They also play currents when they’re hot, not after two months of saturation on multiple rival stations. In that regard, they’re very similar to the successful German ACs that often end up playing songs like “Little Talks” or “Let Her Go” before American AC radio gets to them.

The danger for Mainstream AC is being trapped between positions. As a researcher, I work with stations where the answer to “do you like today’s music” is not necessarily the same as “should we play a lot of it.”

The danger for the Greatest Hits format is that some operators may not be interested no matter how well it does. It seems like an odd time to disenfranchise those listeners most enamored with radio, but that practice continues.

The Consultant Asks… Why MusicMaster? posted on September 15th, 2014

By Marianne Burkett

I have many clients who also happen to be programming consultants… and the times, they are a changing. Now that MusicMaster is thoroughly saturating the Music Scheduling world – many consultants want to know what the advantages are and what are the differences between MusicMaster and the other Music schedulers on the market. (more…)

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Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) Visit posted on September 1st, 2014

Jesus Rodriguez and Aaron Taylor visited MusicMaster clients Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) during their Los Angeles visit to see if night DJs really have the most fun. They got the opportunity to hang out with DJ Pato and his show doing big things in the LA market.

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Optimum Rule Performance posted on September 1st, 2014

By Paul Ziino

Open a Music Category in Library Maintenance and add in the field called “Performance.” (more…)

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Visiting Univision Radio posted on August 31st, 2014

Jesus Rodriguez and Aaron Taylor made a surprise visit to MusicMaster client Univision Radio during their Los Angeles visit. At every corner there was a computer with MusicMaster in action. Beware! Your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant might surprise you too someday so make sure those rotations are tight. We kid! We kid! Well, as long as you schedule our favorite song.

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Univision Building

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Univision Radio LA Stations

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Aaron Taylor, Nando (Music Research Dept.), Jesus Rodriguez, and JJ Ayala (Music Research Department)

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