What do you do with undersold inventory? Aquira features the ability to plot logs with various log filler options to prevent empty breaks. With Aquira’s Filler Available option, traffic managers can schedule added value spots for current advertisers, promote unique events on specific dates, or view spots that are available to fill. Dawn Newberry, RCS Aquira Traffic Specialist, joined us to review setting up contract filler parameters, global settings to apply rules for fulfilling breaks, how to schedule fillers and more.
Starting with setting up fillers, users must first establish what dayparts can include fillers via the Setup | Stations | Day Parts and Time Segments. Essentially, we’re building a workflow by defining this daypart can schedule filler spots, followed by which log breaks are allowed to fill, what contracts have filler options enabled, and finally what media is considered a filler spot. This daypart step is important because users can control when Aquira will fill. Think of a 24/7 Network that would require fillers to be available for all dayparts versus a single station who’s morning drive banned fillers because that is where the station generates the most revenue. After we save the dayparts, head to Setup | Clocks | Log Breaks and use the Fillers | Filler Rule to highlight what log breaks can either Always Fill Log Break, Do not Fill Log Break and continuous Log Breaks, or Do not Fill Log Break empty. For example, if your station included an optional middle break, at like 30:00, then a programmer might define that log break as Do not Fill Log Break empty so that if there’s no spots for that spot block, Aquira will skip over it, which will benefit both the programmer and the listener as we’re replacing filler spots with additional primary content.
Now that we’ve properly setup and configured daypart and log break fillers, we can specify what contract can fill. From the Contracts | Options subtab, there’s a Filler section that allows traffic managers to define the Filler Method: Any Day or Spot on Day. Any Day simply means that Aquira can fill any log break on any day at any time, as long as there’s no Media overrides. Spot on Day will schedule spots if a contract spot was already scheduled for that day. For example, if the contract was plotted for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with Spot on Day, Aquira will only schedule filler elements on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Whereas, if Any Day was selected, even though the main contract spots were scheduled for three days, Aquira can schedule the filler spot on Tuesday and Thursday. There’s additional overrides at the Media level so that if a specific Media was banned from airing Tuesday and Thursday, despite Filler Method: Any Day was selected, the filler Media would not be allowed to schedule on those days as defined by the Contract | Media subtab. As a bonus tip, Dawn outlined how some traffic managers will isolate filler spots, even duplicating general contract spots, so that there’s a clear distinction between the normal contract spots and filler spots. This way, as the contract spots change, the traffic manager knows there’s a generic media always waiting to fill without any on-air timeline conflicts.
If you’re a network headend or perhaps you are programming traffic for multiple stations that feature extensive filler spots, traffic managers can use the Traffic | Fillers Available subtab to review some or all the filler spots that are allowed to schedule during a specific date range. This is especially convenient if you already isolated multiple contract’s filler media and over time, you want to view and adjust all the potential filler spots. Perhaps there was a filler spot that has been airing for over a year and the traffic manager would prefer to freshen up the filler spot or if it’s a quiet sales period and the user knows they’re going to be underfilled, they could use Fillers Available to see if there’s enough of a variety of filler spots to include or exclude from future logs.
Finally, we reviewed how to schedule fillers from Traffic | Logs. There are multiple ways users can plot their filler spots. Once a log is scheduled, open a log and use the Fillers icon to open your Fillers window on the right. Users will see a list of available fillers and then manually drag in the desired fillers or use the Parameters subtab to create your filler spots. If you’re overseeing multiple stations, from the Traffic | Logs | Browse subtab, simply click on your desired log or logs and use the same Fillers icon to automatically plot all filler spots. The only difference is that this fillers trigger includes less filler scheduling options than if you opened a specific day and then added fillers. Remember, these are filler spots, not traditional paid spots. So, if your logs are full, then Aquira will not schedule any filler spots. However, if you need to properly time out your hours or match on network programming, Aquira fillers are a great resource for traffic managers.
There are additional Aquira how to videos featuring our local traffic specialist, Dawn Newberry. If you wanted to review those or other videos across all RCS products, check out our RCS Live Archive here. Outside of the RCS Academy, we’re still hitting the road for the rest of 2024, including stops in Texas, San Diego, Ontario, Ohio and more. If you’re attending a radio conference, reach out and schedule some time with RCS Academy for one-on-one assistance. Otherwise, we’ll see you again on our socials for our next RCS Live.