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Automation and Schedulers for the future of Radio

P

PulseGM

I am doing a survey of sorts to find out what stations around the industry are using as far as automation and scheduling software. We currently have two streams that run 24/7 through Live365. We currently use NexGen Automation with Music Master as our scheduler with Live365 playing our streams. We have been debating on weather or not to continue using NexGen as we might think it is too much for what we need. At the same time, I don't want to short change any students including myself trying to get into a broadcasting career. As students come and go, we would like to be able to train them with the current industry standard but as the industry is changing, we would like to be able to offer them a chance to be one step ahead of the curve as they go out in to the work force looking for a broadcasting position. Is there any information or guidance that would be helpful for students who want to get into broadcasting that we could do? How do you see the state of broadcasting changing in the future?

Also, what is a good scheduler that works well with NexGen? What also would be a good replacement for Live 365? Switching back and forth through NexGen and Live365 in order to do "Live" programming is proving to be a hassle and there has to be a better way to stream "Live" programming without having to stop NexGen. Can you help at all?

I know this a lot of information and questions and I appreciate your feedback.
 
PulseGM said:
I am doing a survey of sorts to find out what stations around the industry are using as far as automation and scheduling software. We currently have two streams that run 24/7 through Live365. We currently use NexGen Automation with Music Master as our scheduler with Live365 playing our streams. We have been debating on weather or not to continue using NexGen as we might think it is too much for what we need. At the same time, I don't want to short change any students including myself trying to get into a broadcasting career. As students come and go, we would like to be able to train them with the current industry standard but as the industry is changing, we would like to be able to offer them a chance to be one step ahead of the curve as they go out in to the work force looking for a broadcasting position. Is there any information or guidance that would be helpful for students who want to get into broadcasting that we could do? How do you see the state of broadcasting changing in the future?

Also, what is a good scheduler that works well with NexGen? What also would be a good replacement for Live 365? Switching back and forth through NexGen and Live365 in order to do "Live" programming is proving to be a hassle and there has to be a better way to stream "Live" programming without having to stop NexGen. Can you help at all?

I know this a lot of information and questions and I appreciate your feedback.
Click to expand...

We use Selector and linker for scheduling and Scott Studios/Google/Wide Orbit for automation. I really love the automation system because its simple and very easy for students to pick up on. Selector there is a 100 licensing fee each year. Music master is a really good product but costs some money.

If you are looking for a new streaming server, id suggest shoutcast. As long as your institution can provide you bandwidth this a free server and you can use any media player which makes it easier for listeners. You can also track your listening audience on it as well
 
Stick with Live365 - they're the only streaming provider out there that offers packages that'll cover your reporting and licensing fees for ASCAP, BMI, et al. Just make sure you get the right package for that.

I'm confused by what you mean by "Switching back and forth through NexGen and Live365 in order to do "Live" programming is proving to be a hassle and there has to be a better way to stream "Live" programming without having to stop NexGen." Typically that function is very easily accomplished by a mix board (aka "mix console"). Do you not have a mix board?

As for automation, NexGen was designed specifically for the needs of the Clear Channel station empire. It's good for some things, not so good for others. For college radio, it's generally not that good; overkill on a lot of things that leads to excessive complexity and user problems.

There are training advantages to teaching your students high-end systems like AudioVault, Enco, NexGen, WideOrbit, MediaTouch, etc. Personally I think they're overrated. Like as not any student going out in the real world is going to encounter systems set up so uniquely to a given station's needs that your NexGen might only be vaguely similar to another station's NexGen. Given that limited teaching value, I'd put more emphasis on something that works well for your station's needs and focusing more on teaching the overall theories and concepts behind successful automation techniques. To put it another way, the sole reason we use Enco at WHWS because it's networked to the Enco for WEOS - our sister NPR station. Enco tends to confuse the hell out of our students; it definitely has a learning curve because it's a very powerful system...way more power than WHWS needs.

For something more "college radio appropriate", I've heard several stations raving about how great RadioLogik is. It's Mac-based and integrates with iTunes in a slick way. I'd take a look at it. BSI's Simian is another one to look at, although a common refrain I've heard is that it's a cast-iron b*tch to get it set up and running, but it's quite reliable once you do. If you're okay with Linux, Rivendell was created for the Salem Radio Network (religious) and is free and open-source. Similarly, there's TuneTracker and the BeOS. I'm not a fan of using non-Mac/Windows OS software for purposes like this...it tends to mean there's one guy who really loves it and does all the work...and that can lead to severe support issues if anything happens to the one guy. If you want dirt-simple and free, try Winamp Radio Scheduler, a freeware Visual Basic plugin for Winamp.
 
Thanks for the help! This will give us some new ideas on where to go from here.

We have a board but it doesn't switch from Automation to Live. In order for us to go Live is through the soundcard. We have to stop NexGen then switch the soundcard from Player to Record. I am not sure if this is because of Live365 or not. All I know is that we can't use NexGen to switch from Automation to Live programming.
 
To clarify, are you running your automation and webcast encoding on the same computer? Generally speaking, that's not a good practice if you can avoid it. Partly for the reasons you outline, also because it creates a single point of failure across multiple channels of operation.

Webcast encoding doesn't take much horsepower, though. If you can scrounge up an old computer, as long as it runs WinXP at least...or even Linux...it'll work fine to run Winamp. (or some derivation of it that can feed Live365) I think Walmart has a sale on $200 netbook computers which will work fine, too.
 
aaronread said:
Stick with Live365 - they're the only streaming provider out there that offers packages that'll cover your reporting and licensing fees for ASCAP, BMI, et al.
Click to expand...

What about Loudcaster?
 
Zararadio is your best bet for college radio automation. It's free. It's stable and it sounds like someone's running the board. As for metadata for Live365, there is a plug-in to send your metadata to California with practically no problem whatsoever. If you want to hear what Zararadio sounds like, I invite you to listen to non-commercial/oldies WXRB-FM (http://wxrbfm.com) or on TuneIn.com and just look for WXRB. Why spend a lot of money, when you can use a great software that won't break the bank? The learning curve is very easy. You can run with live assist or simply all automation. There's some cute short cuts as well. Try it out and you'll be amazed. I've installed Zararadio three and a half years ago on 'XRB and not once has it crashed. Check it out.

Peter Q. George
President, WXRB-FM Dudley/Webster, MA
 
I'll second that for ZaraRadio - try to find version 1.61 - no registration key required. We've been using it for almost 4 years. I set up the Primary On-Air Computer with the Music Library on a Second Hard Drive. That allowed students to create playlists on a second PC (also running ZaraRadio with the Music Hard Drive mapped to it). They simply carried their playlists on a USB key to the control room.

Don Moore
High Point University
High Point, NC USA
 
Stationplaylist. Stable. comes with music scheduler, and you can voice track. Great support, very affordable.
 
Rivendell is good, but very few use it. BSI Simian and WaveCart. Enco, Wide Orbit, AudioVault, and similar are far more common. I like Zara Radio for Part 15, LPFM, and very small station needs. YMMV! MusicMaster or GSelector are pretty much the music selector standards for radio.
 
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