June 2017

Welcome to MusicMaster!

New From the MusicMaster Blog

by Dave Tyler - As a radio programmer for more than 30 years, I have cultivated my own programming philosophy about what works and what doesn’t. I bet you have too. While we all continue to learn, grow and change, sometimes what we need or want to get that sound in our head onto the airwaves changes as well. One of the many beautiful things about MusicMaster is its ability to change and conform and be customized to do and be what you want. In this article I want to show you how you may already have what you need at your fingertips by re-purposing fields that you don’t currently use.

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by Jerry Butler - MusicMaster has upgraded our Support Center to give you better access to downloads, information and utilities you may need when using MusicMaster. If you had used our previous version of our Support Center, you’ll need to register again. I recommend registering as soon as possible, so you are ready to go when a file is needed.

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Quick Tip: Rule Group - Group Mode

When you set up a Rule Group, you have three group modes: fails when any included rule fails, fail when all included rules fail and test as if the rules are not in a group. It's the fail when all included rules fail option that you may not be using to your greatest advantage. This advantage here is that you can include several variations of a rule. Let's say you did that with Hour Rotation. While a song might never meet all of the rules you created, it might pass one. With this setting, as long as the song passes one of the rules, it moves on in the testing process (if there are other rules yet to be tested) or the song gets scheduled. This basically creates an either/or option in your rules. You are telling MusicMaster that any of the options are acceptable, but at least one must be met. This is one more way that MusicMaster helps you build rules to give you the best possible log.

Using Special Sets to Create Music Promo Teasers

Recently, we released a tutorial about using special sets to dynamically schedule hook promos based on the upcoming playlist. We received such positive feedback from our users, we decided to share it again! This is a great way to keep your music promos sounding fresh and forecast upcoming songs, which can increase both TSL and cume. Using Special Sets, MusicMaster schedules your music first and then finds the matching song title from your Hooks category. To learn more about how it's done, you can watch a step-by-step tutorial here or contact your MSC.

A First for MusicMaster: NAB Shanghai

For the first time, MusicMaster's international distributor ON AIR will attend the spinoff of the NAB Show in Shanghai. More than 200 companies and broadcast professionals will come to demonstrate and experience innovative technology, learn the latest trends, and network with global business and technology leaders. ON AIR's Rainer Eichhorn will be available on the floor for short meetings and chats. If you want to get in touch with him during the show, feel free to arrange an appointment.

Mark Your Calendars for Conclave Genius Day

MusicMaster will be kicking off Conclave 2017 in Minneapolis with a Genius Day. This free workshop will take place on Wednesday, July 26 from 9am to 4pm, on site at the Conclave convention hotel (Doubletree by Hilton). Bring your questions and ideas, sharpen your programming skills and learn from MusicMaster President/Founder Joe Knapp and Corporate Trainer Drew Bennett.

We are also excited to welcome a special guest speaker to this event: Haley Jones from Nielsen Music and BDS Radio. Haley is also a featured panelist at the Conclave, and will be joining our Genius Day to talk about Nielsen, BDS, programming and how to properly apply research scores to scheduling.

While our Genius Day is guided by the needs of our participants, here is a basic agenda of just some the topics we may cover:

08:00AM: Optional Coffee and Social Hour
09:00AM: Introduction
09:15AM: User-Defined Database: Field Types and Associated Rules, Field Properties, Field Categories / Groupings, Repurposing Fields
10:00AM: Library Maintenance: Creating Categories and Category Groups, Using the InfoBar, Custom Layouts, Saved Query vs Song List, Mass Changer, History Graph, Library Analysis, Shortcut Keys
11:00AM: Clocks/Special Sets: Creating and Editing Clocks, Basic Clock Element Types, Clock Assignment Grids, Clock Mass Changer, Format Scheduler
12:00NN: Working lunch provided. Presentation by special guest speaker, Haley Jones from Nielsen Music.
01:00PM: Turnover Analysis: Math Concepts, Dialing In Good Rotation Patterns, Auto-Burn Basics, Kick Spreadsheet, Clock Calls, Daypart Avails, Coding Turnover Analysis, Gold Recycling, Auto Platoon
01:15PM: Rule Tree: Rule Tree Structure and Use, Rule Tree Properties, Breakable vs Unbreakable / Breakable Rule Priority, How Breakable and Unbreakable Rules Merge, All Categories Folder vs Individual Categories, Scalable Rules, Rule Groups and Rule Group Properties, Optimum Goal Scheduling (Artist Keyword, Song Rest, Radial Spread, Spin Consistency)
02:15PM: Schedule Editor: Auto-Scheduler Setup Options, Manual Scheduling Assist Modes, Custom Layouts (Main and F9 Windows), Element Masking, Song Replacement Basics, History Graph Review, Shortcuts (Alt-F9, Alt-F5, etc...), Analysis and Instant Analysis, Direct Field Entry, Advanced Song Replacement/Additional Properties
03:15PM: Special Reports: Airplay Reports from archived logs, Weekly Spins Reports, Most Played Artist Reports, Attribute Reports
03:45PM: Photos and issuing of Genius Day certificates

Don't miss out on this valuable learning opportunity. Register now and spread the word to anyone on your team who could benefit. Guests of all MusicMaster experience levels are welcome!

Click to Register

MusicMaster 6.0 Service Release SR-4 Now Available

The latest service release for MusicMaster 6.0 is now available. This new update contains the latest round of corrections and enhancements. Here are a few highlights: A new navigation update allows you to use CTRL-[ to move the cursor back to the previous cell in most grid-based screens. After you’ve done that, CTRL-] will return you to where you were. In the Schedule Editor, clicking on the upper-left corner cell will select all rows will be selected. Select multiple songs and use the context menu option in Library Maintenance to add them all to the Player Playlist. Nexus improvements include performance improvements to the getAttributes command as well as additional information being returned when using the getSchedule command with the mergeTraffic property. Various other updates and improvements are also included.

Use Help, Check for Updates to upgrade to 6.0 SR-4 today. Contact your Music Scheduling Consultant if you need assistance installing this version or have any questions about the new update.

MusicMaster Connects at Broadcast Asia 2017

From May 23 - 25, MusicMaster was once again part of Asia’s biggest Broadcast technology show, Broadcast Asia. This year, the venue was changed back to the Suntec Center, which gave everybody more space than the last couple of years when it was held at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. MusicMaster and ON AIR were part of the German Pavilion, in cooperation with our friends and partners from Yellowtec and Zenon Media.

Visitors, who came from all over Asia, India, Australia and the Middle East, were able to test the latest versions of MusicMaster Pro 6 and the upcoming release Version 7, as well as our client server version update, MusicMaster CS 2. At the MusicMaster booth, we also showed the deep API integration between MusicMaster and Zenon Media. At other stands, visitors where able to see MusicMaster working together with Wide Orbit, Broadcast Electronics, Netia, Enco and the dira! system of Scisys .

All these systems offer a great level of real time integration with the MusicMaster Nexus API. The fluent workflow between MusicMaster and third party playout, traffic or research systems is a very important part of any further development at MusicMaster. This freedom of choice between different systems was highly appreciated at the Broadcast Asia show.

Our next stop is NAB Shanghai, which starts on June 13. We are looking forward to meeting more interesting people and having discussions about the future needs in our industry and how we can help along the way.


Wide Orbit's Jim Hammond at the MusicMaster booth: Friends working together for many, many years!	Colin Tan of our Singapore based partner company BCI and Rainer Eicchorn of ON AIR demonstrating MusicMaster API integration with Wide Orbit Automation.


Rainer with Hong Po and Gregory Wong from BTL, MusicMaster's partner company in Hong Kong.	Harald and Mike from Scisys and Phil from Broadcast Bionic at the stand of MusicMaster's Malaysian dealer, CEDAR	Broadcast Electronics' Bob Demouth and Rainer showing the deep integration of MusicMaster and Audio VAULT FleX at the BE stand.

Maria Miller joins ON AIR as Sales Assistant

Maria Miller

MusicMaster’s international distributor ON AIR welcomes a new team member! Maria Miller joins the global MusicMaster family as Sales Assistant based in Berlin, Germany.

Maria started her professional career with an apprenticeship as a Commercial Assistant in Business Administration. Before she joined ON AIR, she was engaged in customer service for numerous large companies. Maria is very passionate about communication with people, whether by telephone, email or personally.

Having grown up bilingual, she speaks Russian as perfect as German. Вот это да! Naturally, English also works fine. Maria’s big passion, besides languages, is music – a passion she was practically born with: her mother is a music teacher, her father plays viola in the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and Maria herself likes to play the piano whenever she gets a chance.

An XRT Icon Returns

CBS Radio recently announced the return of Chicago radio figure John Farneda to the position of Music Director for WXRT 93.1 FM.

Farneda’s run with XRT dates back to 1983 when he began as the public affairs intern for XRT midday host Terry Hemmert. Through the years, Farneda was Assistant Music Director, Assistant Program Director/Music Director, and ultimately Operations Director. John stepped away from the industry in 2014 to focus exclusively on the renovation of his historic Frank Lloyd Wright home in the Windy City suburbs. Click here to see John's amazing home.

John will report to XRT Operations Manager/Program Director Greg Solk, who recently commented, “John’s rich history here and unequalled knowledge of the Chicago rock market make him the perfect programming partner.”

A Fast Five with Farneda

Q – What’s the song you love hearing on XRT?
A – “Love Is Mystical” Cold War Kids

Q – What did you miss most while away from the station?
A - I missed my colleagues and the daily interaction with the smartest people in the business. I so missed discussing music, news, life with co-workers.

Q – What’s the best thing about living in Chicago?
A – The skyline and lakefront. Cycling on that 18-mile long paved stretch along the lake is fantastic.

Q – Where do you see XRT in five years?
A – I believe Greg Solk has the vision, drive and focus to take us Top 3. He surrounds himself with talented people and lets them do their job.

Q - What’s your dream concert?
A – I wish I could see John Lennon live at Chicago’s Park West.

Duke Wright’s Legendary Top 40 Turns 40

Midwest Communications' Green Bay based WIXX began airing its current format in 1977. It didn't take long before it became the most-listened to radio station in Northeast Wisconsin, the Fox Valley and Upper Michigan. With one of the largest FM signals in America and live programming 24/7/365, WIXX features the long-airing Murphy in the Morning on weekday mornings.

"A radio station is merely a studio, some equipment, a transmitter and tower, but when you add people, it becomes a living, breathing thing," says Jeff McCarthy, VP of Programming for Midwest Communications. "WIXX has been blessed to have awesome radio talents, celebrities and the most loyal and passionate listeners imaginable. It's been 40 years of success because of the people."

Some of the faces behind WIXX

“It’s difficult to find many stations celebrating 40 years with the same owner, same format and same logo,” shares Corey Carter, WIXX Brand Manager. “We have a morning legend celebrating 26 years and three of the former WIXX Program Directors still in the building. What an amazing story. Interesting, many who’ve lived through the 40 year journey are still locked in with WIXX. It’s certainly a ratings beast 18-34, but remains strong in older demos.”

Click here to check out more WIXX memories.

Menno De Boer - Music Director - Radio 538, The Netherlands

Like many deejays, Menno De Boer (1978) started his radio career as a discjockey at local and regional radio stations. In 1998 he had the honor to do his first radio show for national radio, Veronica FM. In 2003, he got a job at Radio 538. After a few years, Menno became Music & Program Director at a youth station, SLAM! and returned to Radio 538 in 2013, where he got hired as Music Director as well as assistant to the PD.

In late 2015 Radio 538 switched to MusicMaster and Menno got hooked on this software in less than no time. Menno shares: "Seriously, MusicMaster has made my life so much more efficient. I now have time to care about the music we play, rather than the order we play the songs in. Editing a day's log takes just a fraction of what it used to take. As the consistency of our station's sound is most important to us this really is a question of survival in our competitive market.

"The rule tree in our MusicMaster database is so incredibly great: it allows us to balance out our playlist at any given time, resulting in the harmony we desire - and is just us. I have no doubt Radio 538 - which is the market leader in The Netherlands- really has a distinguished sound, which consists of a unique and recognizable ratio between the different genres we play. No other scheduling software has ever been or would be able to help us getting this done with so little effort, with the great results that both us as DJs and our audience get to enjoy every day."

Jerry Butler
Music Scheduling Consultant
Gainesville, FL

Jerry Butler came to MusicMaster three years ago with a strong radio background, having served numerous markets and stations as General Manager, Market Manager, Sales Manager and On-Air Personality. Jerry's talents were recognized by many career nominations and awards: he was a five time finalist in the Radio Wayne Awards for General Manager of the Year, two time finalist for NAB's Marconi Awards for Station of the Year, Finalist for NAB's Marconi Award for Small Market Personality of the Year, Finalist for the Academy of Country Music Awards Small Market Station of the Year, Finalist for CMA's Small Market Personality of the Year, as well as numerous state awards from the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters.

Jerry also gives back to the radio community by helping foster the new generation of broadcast students. He has worked with the University of Florida since 2011 and currently teaches Radio Management. Jerry says, "I love to help students land their first internships and jobs." With that in mind, Jerry also directs the MusicMaster University Program, which connects colleges and universities with course materials that walk students through creating and programming a radio station from the ground up using MusicMaster.

Jerry says his favorite thing about working with MusicMaster is: "I get the opportunity to work with incredible programmers from all over the world." When he's not working, Jerry enjoys fishing, the beach, listening to and playing music, and spending time with his family (pictured below).

Jerry's best advice for people in the radio industry is: "Find a company you believe in and love to work for. Treat every show like you are going for an award and super-serve your listeners and community."

You can find Jerry online at:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjthomasradio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jerrybutlerradio
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrybutler1/
Email: Jerry@musicmaster.com