By Aaron Taylor
As your format evolves, the competitive situation changes or you receive new research data, it often become necessary to make significant changes in your MusicMaster database. Fairly obvious items that need attention in these circumstances include revision of your clocks and assignment grid, adjustments to your Rule Tree and expansion or contraction of the size of your categories.
In this article, we’ll cover the basics of working with the MusicMaster Keyword Separation Wizard.
This helpful tool can help you make decisions on whether the AUTO or custom settings for particular artists or groups are sufficient, or if it might make sense for you to manually override those settings and either put in custom settings or change the ones that are currently set in place for particular keywords. The settings recommended are based upon the currently active clock assignment grid.
To access the Keyword Separation Wizard, go to DATASET-LIBRARY-KEYWORDS.
From there, you’ll see a window open to the Keyword Maintenance screen. For the purposes of this example, use the drop down menu in the upper left hand corner and select the Artist Keywords list. You can utilize the Keyword Separation Wizard for any keyword field you wish in the future.
Next, find Tools, and from the drop down list, select Separation Wizard.
Then, you’ll be at this screen. Go ahead and click the Next button to continue.
You’ll now be given a Calculation Properties selection box that it will be fine for you to accept the default settings offered here. Below is a brief summary describing the options here if you would like to make adjustments.
Recommend separation times that are no more than what percentage of the estimated keyword turnover time. This allows for a cap on how high the recommended values can be.
Set to Auto when the recommended separation exceeds the following value. Anything that exceeds the setting here will be set to Auto and follow the settings for keywords defined in your Rule Tree. This is the one you can have some fun with. How about 9d, 7h, 23m or 11d, 5h, 42m? What would happen? You don’t have to accept any settings when you click Next, so see how much separation you can really get. You don’t have to be worried about core artists, they will get some of the smallest times while your one-hit-wonders will have some of the longest. There are no “rules” here as far as what is acceptable, which is why we encourage you to make something up and put it in to see what happens. We’ll talk about how you can see what it did when you get to the next screen.
Round recommended separation times to the nearest: Allows you to fine tune the Wizard settings.
Avoid full-hour recommendations – This will adjust the suggested values either slightly higher or lower if the suggested separation value ends up being something like 1:00.
Don’t recommend values that are higher than the existing settings. No recommendations made for these if selected.
Remove separation from keywords that do not require any. It will perform this operation if selected.
Recommend basic Hour Rotation settings. The Wizard will perform this operation if selected.
Once you’ve reviewed your setting choices, again click the Next box. The Keyword Separation Wizard will then take a few moments to calculate its suggestions to you and present the following box. In this case 19 active keywords changed. We had 243 Artist Keywords in the database to start. Simply math says only eight percent can’t meet the three hours we picked. That would be a hint to perhaps make the setting higher to see what might be possible. This is why it’s fun to put in a much higher setting. You may still find that a large percentage of your Keywords can meet the setting you pick.
Next, you’ll be offered choices on how to view the suggested changes. Again, you can accept the default settings here if you wish.
Now, go ahead and review your list. Click twice on the header column for Recommended to see all of the recommended changes sorted together in the teal colored list.
At this point, you may elect to Change All of the keywords the wizard has suggested to the separations or hour rotations indicated. If you’d like to just change specific ones to the settings indicated, click in each line and select Change to make adjustment on that one specific keyword. Additionally, you can override the current setting or the recommended setting for any or all of the keywords by simply clicking in the box for Separation and/or Hour Rotation and selecting your own preferences.
Even if you haven’t had the need to radically revamp your database for the reasons mentioned at the start, we’d suggest that it would be a great idea at least to review this list every six months or so. Inevitably, the prominence or importance of certain artists in any given format will ebb and flow over time. That separation setting of forty eight minutes you set on a particular artist or group when they were really “hot” in the format or had just released a new album will seem perhaps too aggressive or liberal six months to a year down the road. Also, you may want to set the separations and hour rotations for much longer periods of time for one off, novelty or potentially very “polar” artists in your format.
If you have questions about fully utilizing the power the MusicMaster Separation Wizard, schedule some time with your Music Scheduling Consultant for further assistance.
Shane Finch also stopped over in Quincy, Illinois to visit the headquarters of Broadcast Electonics. He was greeted by Tim Bealor, who was recently promoted to become BE’s new President.
You’re looking at what may be the last group photo of the programming team at Majestic Broadcasting in Roswell, New Mexico. From left to right, John Sebastian, VP Director of Operations; Ryan Burden, Promotions Director; Tony Clayton, Roswell’s Rock Deity; Joe Knapp and Jesus Rodriguez, MusicMaster; and Ron Stevens, KMOU morning show host. Joe Knapp and Jesus Rodriguez from MusicMaster conducted a Genius Day workshop here last month, just days before three of these gentlemen left the building to pursue other options. Hey, guys, we hope it’s nothing we said! Maybe the aliens had something to do with it. In any case, KMOU-FM, KBCQ-FM, KBCQ-AM, and KSFX-FM are now all in the capable hands of Ryan Burden.
Jill Sorenson recently spent three days away from the “polar vortex” to visit sunny Florida for some intensive training on a new suite of tools that we’ll be using to take our help and documentation systems for MusicMaster and our other new products into the 21st century. We look forward to seeing these improvements in the near future!
MusicMaster is pleased to announce the latest addition to our scheduling family–MusicMaster PE. The “PE” is for Personal Edition. This is a slimmed down version of the MusicMaster you’ve come to rely on. It is designed for users who want to create their own personal audio stream. You’ll be able to manage your music and schedule your logs just like you’ve always done. MusicMaster PE also comes with its own player. After you add a few songs, you’ll be listening to your own stream. Whether you like to plan out your party music or want to create a stream on the Internet, MusicMaster PE gives you all the functionality you’ll need to do that at a price that won’t break your budget. If you or someone you know wants to set up their own stream, call us so we can discuss how quickly you’ll be up and running with MusicMaster PE!
MusicMaster’s Shane Finch and Aaron Taylor visited Southfield, Michigan in suburban Detroit this past month to meet with our good friends at Enco Systems. They were welcomed with a guided tour of the features now available in the latest version of the Enco digital audio automation system. On hand to greet them were members of the Enco team pictured below, including Shawn O’Donnell, Ken Frommert, Dave Turner, and Wesley Grass.
While in town, Shane Finch paid a call on Radio’s Best Friend, Art Vuolo (who is also MusicMaster’s best friend). We thought we’d shoot some candid video in HIS studio for a change!
ON AIR’s Justus Fischer recently visited CoolFM, Wazobia FM, and Nigeria Info in Lagos/Nigeria to do a six day MusicMaster special workshop with the music department.
The three networks broadcast mostly nationwide offering a straight CHR format, local African music, and a News/Talk/Sports format mixed with some smooth Jazz. Furthermore, the corporation is in the process of launching several new TV stations.
Justus was not only impressed by the professionalism concerning their work but also by the gentleness of the Nigerian people in general. It looks like it was lots of fun too!
Watch for the MusicMaster team at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, February 19-21. You can find us on the exhibit floor with automation partner Wide Orbit, and look in your registration packet for a special MusicMaster party invitation.
MusicMaster is thrilled to partner with Wide Orbit and ENCO for our first visit to The Annual NRB International Christian Media Convention and Exposition at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, February 22-25.
After driving in from frosty Atlanta, the MusicMaster road crew visited many old friends and made several new friends at the South Carolina Broadcasters Convention last week. The beautiful Convention Center in Columbia, South Carolina sits right in the Vista area of town, and it’s a great place to hang out with friends! Representing MusicMaster was Drew Bennett in the Wide Orbit booth with Brad Young and Lee Bell, and also Aaron Taylor in the Enco booth with Aaron Johnson. Joining them was MusicMaster’s President, founder, and CEO, Joe Knapp, along with Shane Finch who heads up MusicMaster sales and support operations. We even managed to visit some area radio stations with morning donuts in hand!
Sirius XM hosted Joe Knapp and Paul Ziino for two separate Genius Day workshops. On Monday, January 13th they visited the New York City offices and worked with 33 MusicMaster users. As the discussion was heating up around 2pm… the fire alarm went off! Fortunately the Fire Marshall announced an all-clear, saving everyone from a 37 story stair descent.
On Wednesday, January 15th Joe and Paul visited the Washington DC offices and worked with 33 more users. At 11am the fire alarm went off, but this time everyone was forced to evacuate (fortunately it was only three stories). We all stood outside for nearly an hour discussing all things MusicMaster and Sirius XM while the fire department tended to their business. So much excitement! Lots of great conversation was had, and everyone came away having learned something new. All the users were blown away by the new Optimum Goal Scheduling options available in MusicMaster version 5.0, especially Optimum Radial Spread, and many ran to their workstations to implement the new Goal right away.
Thanks to Cheryl Porro in New York and Jim “Jinx” Bonner in Washington for helping coordinate two great days of learning.
