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The MusicMaster Experience posted on March 31st, 2014

By Marianne Burkett

I get this question a lot from normal folk. “Exactly, what is it that you do?”  By normal folk, I’m referring to people who reside out of the sphere of Broadcasting.

My answer varies depending on the individual asking the question, but I often say: “I help radio sound better”.  MusicMaster is indeed software that enables its users to get the best music or video logs possible. What we do is difficult to explain…even to musicians. (more…)

Broadcast Asia posted on March 27th, 2014

bcaCome and visit us at Broadcast Asia in Singapore on June 17-21 at Stand 5K2-02 where Joe and Rainer will be there to have a chat with you and show you the latest version of MusicMaster!

K-104 Dallas Genius Day Workshop posted on March 24th, 2014

Service Broadcasting Corporation in Dallas, TX hosted Joe Knapp and Jesus Rodriguez on Wednesday, March 19th for a MusicMaster Genius Day workshop.

We don’t know who was more excited between Jesus and the client. We all have that one heritage station that we grew up listening to in our hometowns. The station that influenced our passion for great radio that got us to consider broadcasting as a career. Jesus is a Dallas native and K104 was one of those stations. That being said, for Jesus, the opportunity to consult this client at the legendary studios surpassed any childhood dream of working in those studios as a DJ. It’s not everyday you can say that you are a scheduling consultant for the radio station that raised you.

We discussed every aspect of the software. Joe Knapp blew everyone’s mind with some auto burning tricks to keep a steady history graph for stations with a lot of mix shows. Joe and Jesus said the travel accommodations from gate to gate were amazing, which is easy to say when you live down the street from the client and get to drive your own car!

We would like to thank KKDA-FM/K104 PD George Cook, Operations Manager Michael Erickson, KRNB-FM 105.7 PD Kevin Gardner, and their team for coordinating the day with us.

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MusicMaster President and CEO Joe Knapp, KKDA-FM/K104 PD George Cook, and MusicMaster Representative Jesus Rodriguez

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MusicMaster Representative Jesus Rodriguez, KRNB-FM 105.7 PD Kevin Gardner, and MusicMaster President and CEO Joe Knapp

Cabsat 2014 posted on March 20th, 2014

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We had a great few days at the Cabsat show in Dubai last month. Besides some great looking but dangerous fog and a sand storm, everything went very smooth. Thanks to all the visitors, friends and clients who stopped by at the booth. We will see you all there again in 2015. Here a few impressions of the show:

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We shared a very pretty booth with our partner company AVC

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Rainer from ON AIR and Abdul of Suno Radio, one of our clients in Dubai

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Elliot from AVC Dehli, our partner company in India, showing the latest version of MusicMaster

Rainer speaking with Enco owner Gene Novacek

Rainer from ON AIR speaking with Enco owner Gene Novacek

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And of course a nice crew dinner with our long time client and friend Mehirr of Audio Republic Dubai…

Radiodays Europe 2014 in Dublin posted on March 20th, 2014

Justus Fischer from ON AIR is going to attend Europe’s biggest radio industry event on March 23-25. We are sure it’s going to be an exciting show again. This year’s list of speakers and panelists reads like the “who’s who” of the international radio business. Check out more details and the program at the event’s website, and feel free to contact Justus during a coffee break for a brief update on MusicMaster’s upcoming line of new versions!

Do Shazam And SoundHound Recognize What Radio Didn’t? posted on March 19th, 2014

By Sean Ross

It’s been a big year for Shazam.

The music recognition app is now a regular part of record label trade advertising.

At Country Radio Seminar in February, it was key in several attempts to apply “Moneyball”-type analytics to potential hit records. One of them was a formula by Stone Door Media Lab’s Jeff Green that eight or more tags-per-spin in a song’s second chart week could predict a top 10 hit.

One sees Shazam (or SoundHound or MusicID) being used in public on a regular basis now, to the point where it’s becoming a shared experience. Over the holidays, it was an app that helped me figure out that ELO’s “Long Black Road” was playing in a key scene in “American Hustle.” As we filed out, I spotted somebody tagging the same ELO song during the final credits.

I occasionally run into songs that stump all three of my music recognition apps. For the most part, however, they’ve sharply reduced the trouble that I used to go through to find out what song I was hearing. Some of those song quests ventured to the outer limits of music geekery. The most extreme involved buttonholing a Swedish consultant in the halls of the NAB radio show and humming a song I’d heard a decade earlier. (It worked.)

But mostly I did what regular listeners would have, if they’d been particularly taken with a song. I spent a lot of time waiting for somebody to pick up a radio station request line, back when there was still a person to answer them. Or I would negotiate with put-upon sounding station receptionists, who could never be bothered to hunt down the info themselves, and some who wouldn’t even transfer the call to the music director.

I always wondered if program and music directors knew just how careless their staffs were about flagging curiosity calls. To a PD, curiosity calls were always the first sign of passion on a new song. Even a few could be enough to save a song that was otherwise on the cusp of playability. Yet stations did so little to capture that information.

The willingness to make a phone call counted for a lot. Many listeners cheerfully go through their busy lives with only a vague idea of what artist actually sings that song they sort of like. Even among those who wouldn’t, however, complaints about stations that didn’t identify songs were a listener research staple for years. And the contradiction with also wanting less talk didn’t make them listeners any less sincere in their frustration.

Some broadcasters have become more cognizant of identifying songs in the last decade, especially the handful now using pre-recorded “song tags” for every song. But the irony is that radio has, for the most part, handed over both a research and a listener bonding opportunity. The apps have a broader reach than radio — listeners who would never call a radio station are Shazaming obscure recent ELO songs that they hear somewhere else anyway. But the information that we could have gotten from listeners by answering the phone is now being jobbed out, at a cost, to a third party as well.

Record labels have been consistently unsparing over the years toward radio’s lack of front- and back-sells. I have understood, in ways that labels did not always, why identifying every song wasn’t always good programming. But now Shazam, which was also on the dais at CRS, will “write new business” for doing the thing that labels wanted from radio.

This discussion led my Edison Research colleague Larry Rosin to suggest that radio station apps should include music recognition software as well. Beyond that, radio still has a lot of opportunities on a daily basis to tell listeners what they’re hearing, and to make them excited about it. Not relinquishing that franchise all together is part and parcel of protecting bigger franchises — music discovery and music creation.

If radio does not want to entirely abdicate the job of telling listeners what they’re hearing, they can do the following:

Make sure the “now playing” information on the Website and the station player actually works. And that the player and website refresh when there are new songs. And that weekend feature and other special programming songs are loaded in the system so that they display as well.

When we remind listeners that all of our song history is available on the station website, do it in conjunction with a real backsell, so that it doesn’t seem like just another cynical bid for web traffic.

Tell the morning show to actually acknowledge and interact the music, instead of having no seeming relationship to it.

Make station metadata robust and accurate. Our streaming players and websites often make the same gaffes as rookie DJs (attributing a major hit from a famous album to a greatest hits compilation, for instance). Song ID apps aren’t perfect; a friend recently found a Dean Martin song wrongly credited to “the Cat Pack.” But advocates of the FM-on-mobile NextRadio app are correct when they say that listeners expect more and better metadata than they’re getting from radio.

Radio hasn’t just provided music to listeners over the years. It has provided music expertise. Listeners now have more ability to find new music and find out more about that music. In that regard, fewer opportunities to be their hero exist. Those that still come radio’s way should not be lost.

Making External Connections with MusicMaster posted on March 19th, 2014

By Jill Sorenson

MusicMaster has all the programming tools you’d expect in a music scheduler along with many surprises to make your life easier.

Our ability to integrate with third-party systems is a dream come true for busy programmers. Do you need to import a library from your automation system? Check. Import metadata from your media source? Check. Import research scores? Check. Export your playlist in a form ready for the web? Check. Import traffic so you can accurately time your log? Check.

All of these import/export features are built into MusicMaster. Each require a little one-time set-up then it’s on to other more important things in your day. Here’s a brief summary on how MusicMaster accomplishes these things. (more…)

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Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference Recap posted on March 19th, 2014

MusicMaster’s Aaron Taylor and Shane Finch recently attended The Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference & EXPO (GLBC) in Lansing, Michigan. GLBC is the Midwest’s premier educational and networking conference for radio, television and media professionals.

Ken Frommert and Dave Turner from our vendor partners Enco at our shared booth space at the Great Lakes Radio Conference in Lansing, Michigan  speaking to visitorsMusicMaster joined forces with Dave Turner and Ken Frommert of automation partner ENCO (pictured above) for two snowy Michigan days of displays and demonstrations.

Hundreds attended The Lansing Center for incredible learning opportunities, including the cutting edge session “Radio in an Audio World” by Sean Ross of Edison Research, and a tasty lunch presentation “Growing Media” with Kevin Gage of the NAB.

Shane Finch from MusicMaster and Art Vuolo Radio's Best Friend discuss the sessions at the Great Lakes Broadcast Conference in Lansing, Michigan (1)It’s always great to see old Michigan friends like Professor Dick Kernan of Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts, Art Vuolo “Radio’s Best Friend” (pictured above with Shane Finch), WEMU PD Patrick Campion, and many others.

MusicMaster client MacDonald Broadcasting Operations Manager Scott Loomise with Aaron Taylor from MusicMaster on a visit to their facility in Lansing, Michigan March 11Aaron and Shane stopped by Lansing’s famous bakery “Sugar Shack“, snatched a few dozen freshly baked cookies, and made a sneak attack on MusicMaster client Scott Loomis of MacDonald Broadcasting (pictured above with Aaron).

Aaron Taylor and Shane Finch from MusicMaster causing trouble in the studio with MacDonald Broadcasting Program Director (and MusicMaster client) Don BlackWhile touring the radio studios, Aaron and Shane attempted to commandeer Power 96.5 away from PD Don Black (above). Black successfully fought off the attack and lives to thrill radio listeners another day!

MusicMaster Speaks Your Language posted on March 17th, 2014

By Jesus Rodriguez

MusicMaster is the leading scheduling software in our industry. It is not only the choice of more programmers in the United States but also worldwide. Although we would like to think that everyone in the world speaks English unfortunately many do not and we are aware of it. Whether you are a user outside of the U.S. or in a situation where growth is key for your company to survive, a language barrier will not be an issue. (more…)

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MusicMaster Acoustic Jam Meet & Greet with Mel Tillis posted on March 16th, 2014

MusicMaster continues to celebrate our Pearl Anniversary with The 30th Anniversary Acoustic Jam featuring Country Music Hall of Famer Mel Tillis, and a stage filled with incredible talent. Hundreds of amateur Statesiders and Stutterettes came to meet Mel and take home a personal photo with the 1976 CMA Entertainer of the Year.