MusicMaster Blog

Welcome to MusicMaster

Radio Stephansdom – Vienna, Austria; WUSH-FM – Norfolk, Virginia

NAB Radio Show

If you are planning to attend the NAB Radio Show in Dallas on September 19th-21st, make plans to stop by booth #701 and see us. We will be happy to show you what’s new in Version 5, or answer any questions you may have. If you need a VIP Exhibits Pass, we have a limited number available here.

RAIN Nominates The Cigar Station For Best Webcaster 2012

The Cigar Station, powered by MusicMaster, scores a nomination! Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN), Kurt Hansen’s respected voice of Internet Radio has nominated The Cigar Station for Best Single Stream Webcaster in the 2012 RAIN Internet Radio Awards Competition. Awards will be presented at the RAIN Summit on September 18 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas.

The Cigar Station is an active voice for smokers’ rights and is affiliated with The International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association (IPCPR) and Cigar Rights of America (CRA), the industry’s largest lobby organizations on behalf of the rights of smokers, retailers and manufacturers. The station schedules regularly updated IPCPR Updates. Click here to listen.

Industry Event Calendar

If you are planning to attend any of these upcoming events let us know. We would love the opportunity to say hello, share a cup of coffee, or help with any questions you may be having.

• September 5-8: Christian Music Broadcasters – Orlando, FL
• September 6-11: IBC 2012 – Amsterdam
• September 11: Radioday Germany – Cologne
• September 19-21: NAB Radio Show – Dallas, TX
• October 24-25: Medientage – Munich
• November 17: Radioday Netherlands – Amsterdam
• December 5-6: Arbitron Client Conference – Annapolis, MD

MusicMaster Pro-Team: Keith Cunningham

Jacobs Media is the nation’s leading rock consultancy firm. Fred Jacobs created the Classic Rock radio format in 1983. Since then, Jacobs Media has expanded its services to include Rock, Alternative (“The Edge”), and Public Radio.

With a commitment to innovation and customized strategies, the Jacobs Media team of consultants keeps clients aware of new trends, using nationwide online polls, focus groups, and ethnography, going beyond the numbers and observing real people in real life situations. Station services include strategic development, cluster strategy, music management and architecture, production and positioning, personality coaching, and promotional, contesting, and tactical concepts and execution. Jacobs Media’s SmartSuite analytics package helps programmers better understand their stations’ music design and on-air presentation, as well as tracking the competition.

You can contact Keith at 310-452-7126 or keith@jacobsmedia.com.

The MusicMaster Pro-Team is comprised of experienced broadcast consultants and programmers who are available to assist MusicMaster clients with programming advice. Their services are available under this cost effective program with no long term commitment required, and can be added to your existing software support plan. Information on each MusicMaster Pro-Team member is available below. If you would like to retain the services of one of the MusicMaster Pro-Team members or have questions about the specifics of the program contact Mark Bolke Vice President/COO at (651) 405-9119 or Mark@MusicMaster.com.

See the complete MusicMaster Pro-Team Roster.

Quick Tip: Category QuickMove

Version 5 has a new feature called Category QuickMove under the Dataset, Library menu.  This option allows you to call up several categories and move songs back and forth between the categories. Since you can see all the songs in each category, you’ll know exactly what’s in each.  You’ll also see the original song and slot information for each category along with updated information for the moves you’ve made.  No moves are made until you save your work.

Category QuickMove is just another way MusicMaster helps you get weekly music maintenance done more efficiently.

Recent Feature Articles From the MusicMaster Blog

How to Read the Recap Report
by Paul Ziino

The Scheduling Recap Report (Dataset/Schedule/Recap Report) is a great tool for determining which unbreakable rules are causing unscheduled positions in your log as well as which breakable rules are being violated. (Read more.)

New in MusicMaster 5.0 – Custom User Buttons
By Drew Bennett

One of the many features we all love about MusicMaster is the ability to customize the look and feel of it. You can change layouts, move windows around, choose to show or hide elements. You can even plug your own logo into the software and print reports or just spruce things up a bit. Now, MusicMaster 5.0 takes customization a step further with Custom User Buttons for your main Toolbar. (Read more.)

Music Masters of the Month

Jennifer Hambrick and the gang
WOSU-FM
Columbus, Ohio

“MusicMaster helps the staff of WOSU Public Media’s Classical 101 classical music radio service bring beautiful, inspiring music to listeners all day, every day. All of the Classical 101 team members use MusicMaster to research artists, to find great performances of well known works and even to rediscover those great “spice” recordings lurking on their library’s shelves!

“Classical 101 Music Director Beverley Ervine is always elbow-deep in MusicMaster, scheduling the station’s 12 hours daily of locally hosted music programming. She especially likes MusicMaster’s multiple Title Keyword functionality: ‘Since the classical music radio format deals so often with excerpts from larger works, being able to assign multiple Title Keywords to each database record allows us to avoid duplications in programming.’ Ervine also appreciates that MusicMaster’s search filters can help her target and find in her dataset’s Library exactly what she’s looking for, and she enjoys finding creative ways to use Song Lists. ‘Classical radio programming tends to acknowledge annual holidays and other notable dates,’ Ervine said. ‘It’s nice that once we build a playlist for a special date we can add its contents to a Song List, so that when that date rolls around again we have a list of appropriate musical selections at our fingertips.’ “

Welcome to MusicMaster

STAR TV – Hong Kong, China; DDJ Music – Huizen, Netherlands; alster radio 106!8 – Hamburg, Germany; Radio Veronica – Naarden, Netherlands; 91.7 xfm – Hamburg, Germany; Radio Stephansdom – Vienna, Austria; WVSX-FM – Shelbyville; WPXC-FM, WFRQ-FM, WHYA-FM – Cape Cod, Massachusetts; WJYW-FM – Union City, Ohio; CJWA-FM – Wawa, Ontario; JamTraxx Media – Chicago, Illinois

New Service Release Available

MusicMaster 5.0sr3 is now available.  Changes include allowing you to filter the Rule Tree for any Optimum Scheduling Goals, increasing the length of LogNote text to 255 characters along with additional fixes and other improvements.  Run Help, Check for Updates to download this new version.

Conclave 37

It was great seeing all of our clients and friends at Conclave 37 in Minneapolis. Lori Lewis of Jacobs Media spoke to a capacity crowd in the MusicMaster Ballroom.

Keith Hill and Joe Knapp had front row seats for the keynote with Governor Mike Huckabee.

Cool Stuff Seen At Conclave:

Check out Social Radio, a new player/platform for online radio stations that blends the functionality people like about Pandora (skipping songs, changing channels, “liking” things to get more of something) with what makes Radio powerful (the station brand, talent, local content and local connection to the community). At stations with Social Radio, DJ’s get to pick music and curate shows around music and topics they are passionate about. It’s kind of like algorithm-assisted local Radio. Take a look at their first station that is ramping up right now.

Germany Rocks on MusicMaster

The latest ratings just came out and brought some very good news to several MusicMaster clients.

The Top 2 stations, in Germany are Radio NRW and Antenne Bayern.

Four stations out of the Top 5 and eight out of the Top 10 radio stations in Germany are all using MusicMaster to schedule their music.

We want to congratulate these stations and thank all of our clients in Germany for their trust in MusicMaster.

Lokalrundfunktage 2012

This July, people from all over Europe met for the 20th Lokalrundfunktage in Nuremberg. The main topic of the event was what the future holds for local broadcasters in the new media-environment, and the highlight of the evening was the famous get-together in the historic castle.

Jürgen Kraus (Head of Music Antenne Bayern), Matthias Ihring (Head of Music Radio7) and Justus Fischer (On Air Digital) are seen below at the event having a good time.

Industry Event Calendar

If you are planning to attend any of these upcoming events let us know. We would love the opportunity to say hello, share a cup of coffee, or help with any questions you may be having.

• August 19-21: Monitor Latino Convention – Los Angeles, CA
• August 23: Swiss Radioday – Zurich
• September 5-8: Christian Music Broadcasters – Orlando, FL
• September 6-11: IBC 2012 – Amsterdam
• September 11: Radioday Germany – Cologne
• September 19-21: NAB Radio Show – Dallas, TX
• October 24-25: Medientage – Munich
• November 17: Radioday Netherlands – Amsterdam

MusicMaster Pro-Team: Dave Lange

He is recognized across the country as a leading expert in all forms of radio programming. While Dave’s worked successfully with all formats from News Talk to Active Rock he specializes in the Rock formats including Classic Rock, Classic Hits, Active Rock, Mainstream Rock and Alternative.

Dave Lange has an extensive programming, consulting and senior management background, spanning nearly 30 years. Serving as Senior VP of Programming for Clear Channel preceded by Programming VP assignments with Capstar and AMFM.

His “hands-on” programming background includes Chicago (WCKG), Pittsburgh (WDVE), Miami (WSHE), Grand Rapids (WLAV) and Lansing Michigan.

His travels have covered well over 350 radio stations in over 50 markets. While Dave’s worked successfully with all formats from News Talk to Active Rock he specializes in the Rock formats including Classic Rock, Classic Hits, Active Rock, Mainstream Rock and Alternative.

You can contact Dave at 574-273-0559 or DLange210@att.net.

The MusicMaster Pro-Team is comprised of experienced broadcast consultants and programmers who are available to assist MusicMaster clients with programming advice. Their services are available under this cost effective program with no long term commitment required, and can be added to your existing software support plan. Information on each MusicMaster Pro-Team member is available below. If you would like to retain the services of one of the MusicMaster Pro-Team members or have questions about the specifics of the program contact Mark Bolke Vice President/COO at (651) 405-9119 or Mark@MusicMaster.com.

See the complete MusicMaster Pro-Team Roster.

Quick Tip: Coding Analysis

With 5.0, you can not only look at your song turnovers, but your coding turnovers as well. Use the icon on the lower part of the graph to pick any of your coding fields. When displayed, you’ll see information on how many of each code you have, the separation daily and weekly of each code, the turnover of the codes as well as density over the week. It’s just another way MusicMaster gives you detailed information to help you analyze your data to help you meet your programming goals.

Recent Feature Articles From the MusicMaster Blog

Clock Mass Changer
By Aaron Taylor

Here’s a really handy feature in MusicMaster that can save you a TON of time when you need to change out a particular element in many different clocks. Instead of the chore of searching through your entire Format Clock Maintenance list and finding each instance of the item that needs to be adjusted, you can target that specific element in a database globally with the Clock Mass Changer. (Read more.)

5.0’s Infobar Enhancements
By Marianne Burkett

What’s new in the Version 5 Infobar? Check out the new Lognotes tab inside the Clock tab of the Infobar!  It allows you instant access to your lognotes which you can then drag and drop right into your clocks AND your schedule editor!  Talk about a time saver. (Read more.)

Music Master of the Month

Jeff Wolf
Operations Manager
Border Media Austin
Austin, Texas

“It’s hard to narrow down what my favorite feature of MusicMaster is. Overall, it has to be how user friendly and intuitive the entire program is.

“Most of us are pretty familiar with Windows, and MusicMaster is a program designed for 2012 and the future. I LOVE the mass changer feature that allows you to easily change the attributes of as many titles as you’d like in just a couple of clicks. You can even change the font from all caps, to a mix of caps and lower case. That was a huge time saver for me as I was importing many songs into my library that did not look how I wanted them to look. You can do this with everything from Artist Keywords to Sound Codes.

“I’m also a big fan of how completely customizable everything is, especially in the schedule editor. It’s a HUGE time saver to have the things that are most important to YOU where YOU want them when you are scheduling your music and other elements.

“We looked at all of the options available to us, and in truth, there really aren’t many serious contenders out there when it comes to music scheduling software. When we learned how competitive the terms are and add in how passionate and professional the support staff is…the decision was easy for us to choose MusicMaster. I’ve been using MusicMaster for about seven months and I have completely fallen in love with this software. If you’re thinking about upgrading, you will not be disappointed with MusicMaster 5.0.”