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dynamic insertion

B

bobdavcav

Hi all,
Here's kind of a weird question. How does an automation system know what to insert where? As an example, if my station is programmed locally, I tell the scheduler to choose the legal, a power, an imaging spot, a gold, a recurrent, a jingle, then another power, and the system plays this accordingly. Let's say the log is generated from a national programming service though, what happens there? Are the imaging spots scheduled by timed events, or is there a way to associate a particular file type in the generated log with a local audio type? For example, station 1 plays an imaging spot between songs 1 and 2, but station 2 plays a jingle between those same songs, but for the sake of simplicity, those spots are reversed between songs 2 and 3, so that station 1 plays the jingle while station 2 plays an imaging spot. How is this handled by the local scheduler?
 
When I worked at WSRO, the automation used a master template for each day. This template included format clocks for each hour, including switcher commands, which were used to control the various inputs. (Example: Switch studio A to Air.) There were also scheduled breaks, which were imported from the traffic log after it was generated. (Example: Traffic would schedule 3 mins. worth of spots at say, 7:20. When these were imported into Rivendell automation (which is what we were using at the time) a master log for that day was generated. Then it was checked for errors before being scheduled. Usually this was done on a daily basis, or on Fridays, for the weekend.

Think of it as a souped up playlist, but instead of just mp3 files, it included the switcher commands. These commands were quite versatile, as we could not only switch various inputs to air (Studios, networks, or audio files) or even send live audio to a recorded file for later playback.

As an example, we could start and stop a network feed to record a segment for recorded playback later. Usually at the top of each hour, the on-air studio would be silenced, an ID would play, and maybe a couple spots would play and the next hour would put the studio back on the air.

The traffic break was set up so it would schedule spots, PSAs, promos in a predetermined order, and then just send each break into the automation. Music could also be imported in the same manner. The music software checks your categories, tempo, artist separation, etc, before generating a log, which is also imported into the master automation log.

So the main task each day was to generate a traffic log with traffic software, and a music log with the music scheduling software, and import everything into Rivendell and generate a master log for the next day. Usually there were no errors. (Breaks too short or too long could be a red flag.)

That's an extremely simplified answer, but hope it helps.
 
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Well, that does but it doesn't answer the question. The scenario I was thinking of was what I imagine iHeart does, which I think is mostly tracked. I figured the automation, however it was set up, generated a master log for each unit of time, whether that be an hour or a day, but let's use a real example I heard several years ago. I had heard that iHeart used the same Christmas library across all its stations, but had never log matched it before. So, one Friday afternoon, I decided to compare Spokane's KISC to Portland's KKCW. KKCW was a few seconds behind, but they were in fact running the same log. I believe I started matching during Amy Grant's version of It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. KISC then played a break from the jock on the air, though all she did was give a quick station ID into Taylor Swift's version of Santa Baby. A few seconds later, KKCW made the same transition, but with a happy holidays jingle. When that song ended, I think KISC played an imaging spot, but the jock on KKCW said "Here's Elvis on K103," both stations going into Blue Christmas. Then both had a jock break into a local commercial break. How would the scheduling work from the perspective of each of those stations?
 
Most likely they have some kind of daily log of Christmas songs in order for each day that they send to multiple stations. They would just go through the songs in order and insert their local breaks (local spots, promos, jingles) as needed.

I have heard two different AC stations here in SWFL do the same thing with their regular music. Same songs in the same order, sometimes a minute or more difference, with different local breaks.
 
Would someone have to insert them manually, or does Next Gen have a system that does this automatically based on a set of configured rules?
 
My guess would be a combination of both. Our traffic system was configured so that promos were inserted automatically as the last element of a break. The breaks could be configured as needed. Of course it was double-checked manually, and sometimes tweaked as needed before sending it to automation.
 
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