MusicMaster Blog

By Marianne Burkett

In the Programming department of any radio station, the final product flowing from the speakers is really all that matters.  Compelling content, cool promotions, contests and stand out imaging, news and weather are important, but well-crafted music logs are really key to spiking the stations Time Spent Listening. (more…)

By Paul Ziino

We often are asked by customers to help them figure out why songs are scheduling that violate rules. Usually, the problem is that the rule being violated isn’t active for the category in question. How can we figure this out? The answer is “View Category Rule List”. (more…)

By Paul Ziino

Lots of MusicMaster customers use Segue Protection rules to make sure slow songs don’t segue into fast songs or to prevent female artists from playing back-to-back. But have you ever considered using Segue Protection to match the talk-over times to the appropriate song intros? This is the question we get:

“I have a song with a 12 second intro. I want to make sure that the imaging piece before it will go over the ramp of the song and meet the post. Is that possible?” (more…)

Exactly what is “Auto Kick”?

As a review, the Auto Kick rule property is used to prevent a song from playing at the same time on consecutive days. You can adjust the windows size, which is the amount of time around a play yesterday that you would like to protect. (more…)

by Paul Ziino

When you open your Rule Tree (Dataset/Rule Tree or click the Lightning Bolt icon on your Toolbar), you open a world full of possibilities. Today we look at a couple rules found under each code within your “Attribute Field Rules”. (more…)

Here’s a great way to “get a handle” on the content and set up of a Rule Tree in MusicMaster. Print it! Click on the printer icon in the center section of the split screen (it is right above the bold MusicMaster Rule Tree header). (more…)

by Drew Bennett

Today, I want to let you in on an interesting rule in the MusicMaster for Windows Rule Tree. It’s called, Shift Pattern Rotation and it may change the way you schedule your bigger categories. Why? Because it’s so cool!

In your Rule Tree, look at the Available Rules folders on the right side of the screen and locate the Shift Pattern Rotation rule inside the Hour Rotation Rules folder under Song/History Rules. (Hint: It’s the second rule from the bottom.)

Let’s decide if the Shift Pattern Rotation rule is right for you by taking a look at the properties of the rule to find out what it does. To see the properties of a rule, pull it over to a Breakable or Unbreakable folder in your Rule Tree.

When the properties box pops up, you can see how we are able to set up the rule. The Shift Pattern Rotation rule tests songs to make sure they schedule within the shift pattern that you define within the rule. To set the pattern you want your songs to follow, click on the numbered boxes in the rule. As you click the boxes, they will move to the Shift Pattern line. The order they in which they appear are in the order that will be used to move the songs through your shifts. Basically, you are restricting the songs to only play in the shift that follows the last shift they played in within this pattern. Cool, huh!
This is how I set up my rule. I only have 8 shifts defined in my Shift Editor so I don’t need to include the 9th box in my pattern.

Don’t forget to set your shifts in the Shift Editor. You can find the Shift Editor by choosing the Shift Editor button from within the rule properties. You can also find Shift Editor by going to Dataset, Schedule, Shift Editor or through the Related button in the Rule Tree.

See? I have 8 shifts defined in the Shift Editor and that is why I used 8 boxes in my Shift Pattern rule. Keep in mind, however, that you do not necessarily have to use all of your shifts in the rule. For instance, if you don’t want to consider Overnights when creating the pattern in the rule, leave out the shift number that corresponds with your Overnight shift. Also, any play that occurs in a blank shift will not be counted against the test as it is configured.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, ‘What about dayparted songs within the category?’ Dayparted songs are handled a bit differently when it comes to the Shift Pattern Rotation rule and it’s because of their limited ability to rotate. When MusicMaster comes to a dayparted song that must be tested for Shift Rotation, it will determine the number of shifts that song is allowed to play in. If that number is one or zero, the rule is disabled for this song, otherwise, the song would have no opportunity to play. If the number of shifts the song can play in is less than or equal to the number of plays requested in the rule properties, then the actual number of plays in other shifts required for that song will be the maximum number possible minus one.

For control on how your songs schedule through your shifts, consider using the Shift Pattern Rotation rule on your larger Gold categories. It’s a great way to space your plays evenly throughout your shifts.

by Paul Ziino

Often times we are asked which Hour Rotation rule to use, and many times we end up explaining the differences between “Day Offset Window” and “Sliding Day Offset Window”. Here’s the scoop…

Day Offset Window is used to protect X number of broadcast hours for Y number of days on either side of a play being tested. The most basic setting here is “Days=1/Window Size=1 Hour”. This protects a song from being played two days in a row in the same broadcast hour.

Sliding Day Offset Window with a setting of “Days=1/Window Size=1:00” would protect a song from being played two days in a row while sliding that 1:00 over the time being tested, splitting it in half so as to check +/- 30 minutes on either side of the play being tested.

Let’s assume we’re testing a play at 9:05am on Wednesday. Day Offset Window is in place with that “Days=1/Window Size=1 Hour” setting. This would look at the 9am hour on Tuesday (one day back) and Thursday (one day ahead), and if the song played anywhere within the 9am broadcast hour on either day, it fails the rule. Note: if the song played at 8:55am on Tuesday, the 9:05am Wednesday play would pass this rule as it is in a different broadcast hour.

Now if we have that same play at 9:05am on Wednesday, but this time we have a Sliding Day Offset Window in place with a setting of “Days=1/Window Size=1:00”, MusicMaster will look at Tuesday (-1 day) and Thursday (+1 day), and if that song played within 30 minutes either side of 9:05 (8:35am-9:35am) on either day, it would fail the rule. Note: if the song played at 8:55am on Tuesday, the 9:05am Wednesday play would fail this rule as it is within the +/- 30 minute window.

Let’s take it a step further. We’re still looking at that 9:05am play on Wednesday. This time our Day Offset Window is set to” Days=1/Window Size=3 Hours”. MusicMaster will look at Tuesday and Thursday in the 8am, 9am, and 10am hours (same hour plus the hour on either side for a total of 3 hours) and if the song played within those hours on either day, it would fail the rule.

But if we used a Sliding Day Offset Window set to “Days=1/Window Size=3:00”, MusicMaster will effectively slide that time frame centering it on the play being tested with an equal amount of time on either side. This would mean +/- 1:30 on either side of 9:05am, or 7:35-10:35am.

The Sliding Day Offset Window can be more precise than the Day Offset Window, because Sliding windows can be adjusted to the minute. For example, a setting of “Days=2/Window Size=1:44” will protect +/- 52 minutes on either side of the play being tested for 2 days back and ahead.

In both Day Offset and Sliding Day Offset windows you can check the “Test Past days only” box on the rule properties window to do just that. Then MusicMaster would only look at past play history and not test against future spins.

Using a combination of Hour Rotation rules including Day Offset and Sliding Day Offset Windows can help maximize a song’s day-to-day separation and exposure.

Looking for a fast way to identify which rules (and in what order) are being tested on an individual category? VIEW CATEGORY RULE LIST is the answer!

In the Rule Tree, right click over a category folder. On the context list tha pops up, select the choice for view category rule list. When opened, it will show you all of the rules, combining any All Categories rules with the rules applicable to the category. If you are using any Optimum Goal Scheduling, those rules will be listed at the bottom of the list. Should you wish to view the rules on a particular day and time, simply change that in the box and select “GO” to see the updated rule list. You also have the option of toggling to amother category rule view after you’ve selected this for a previous category view.

I think this is a great way to “double check” your Rule Tree set up work, and/or often very quickly identify if a particular rule is being applied (or perhaps if it isn’t and should be)…As always, if you have any questions about what you are seeing in the Rule Tree, get in touch and we’ll be glad to look things over with you!

Here’s a very cool Rule Type available in MusicMaster: AutoKick. Find it in the “Song/History Rules” folder, then in the subfolder of “Hour Rotation Rules”. While this rule type can accomplish the same goal as setting an Hour Rotation, Day Offset Window of 1 day, 1 hour, the window size you set can be more narrowly defined. You can set a breakable or unbreakable rule for a category that is defined to the quarter hour, half hour, as well as a full hour! I like to suggest this to programmers who have very fast music rotation categories, or where you are simply trying to make certain that the same non music items (sweepers, positioners, jingle elements, as an example) aren’t falling into the same positions daily.