As part of our ongoing “Scheduling with the Pros” series, we invited back John Bonou from our GSelector Development Team to offer his unique perspective on music scheduling. Let’s forget about our traditional 1:1 Category Groups to Category ratio and instead, think big picture. John’s favorite scheduling techniques focus on scheduling the “best” song, embedded in a more flexible clock structure. We reviewed why attributes are so important as the last steps during the scheduling process and introduced other tips to showcase why GSelector creates a better music log.
First, a little housekeeping, John demonstrated how to cater GSelector’s Library to your station’s needs. Note how John identified and filtered by Version versus the typical Packet. John’s station featured power intros, his primary category broken down into two versions of each song: one with a typical intro and another with a built-in intro. Which version plays when? Simple: Identify and control the attribute: Version: Power Intro from the Goals | Balance | Attributes subtabs. How can I only display Power Intro Versions for further manipulation? Use the Library’s Filter on the left to isolate any Versions with the attribute: Power Intro.
Next, we reviewed John’s love for “less is more” categories. Rather than have multiple categories, like 2000s Power Gold, 2000s Secondary Gold, Power Recurrents, Primary Recurrents, Secondary Recurrents, etc…John prefers to schedule based on the quality of the songs, typically based on research. We’ve all experienced those music changes session in which there’s a song teetering on a category or another power song that simply is outperforming the rest of the category. Why should you have to settle for equal rotations? Instead, John schedules roughly three Category Groups. Remember, GSelector Clocks call for Category Groups, not Categories. So, with three Category Groups, we feature: Powers, Secondary, and Reccurrents (or older music). The Power may only feature a couple primary songs, utilizing GSelector’s Shifts to further boost well performing songs, whereas the Secondary Category Group includes multiple categories like Secondary, New Currents (New Music) and New Night Music (new music that is only getting night/overnight spins). There are no restrictions on the number of songs in the Categories, instead, we focus on the Projected Turnover column and adjust the Category Share/Shift to get those songs matched with your desired turnover. If those number fluctuate, no issues with Clocks or rotations due to the already implemented Rules like Yesterday Song (Same Hour), instead simply take a look at this Goals | Categories subtab and make live, real-time changes to your ever evolving Projected Turnovers. Continue to apply that logic to your older songs in the Recurrents Category Group (again, this is simply a label. “Old Songs” could work just as well) and now we isolate Hot Recurrents, Recurrents, Golds and any additional sub-goal categories. Don’t forget to expand these Categories to further control an individual song’s shift and projected turnovers. The same technique can be applied to the Goals | Balance | Songs subtab.
We always emphasize our love for GSelector’s Goals tab, but here is where you can truly cater your rotations to match your music philosophy. Typically, with 1:1 Category Groups to Category ratios, we don’t utilize the Goals | Balance | Attributes | Category, however, with the concept of introducing goal based scheduling, this field is now a very powerful tool. Remember that “New Night Music” category? Switch to the midday shifts and simply ban the category from playing during that daypart. Want to up the spins of your Power Recurrents versus the rest of the typical Recurrents? Then up the Category Shift for Power Recurrents to a value of your choosing. With Shifts, first think of a target goal and then use Shifts to increase or decrease the turnover until you reach your desired value. There are also additional tools like defining a Category’s Max Per Hour or Minimum Separation. If you’re thinking in music sweeps, then set a Minimum Separation of 00 hour and 15 minutes, forcing the Category to move throughout the quarter hour.
But what about specific attributes and making sure similar values don’t schedule back-to-back? Now that we defined the Category rotations, we can focus on the attributes. If your station is Classic Hits, focusing on Era spread, then use the Segue Bans or Spread Goal to move Eras. If your station is Sound Code based, now is the time to implement your Sound Code Segue Bans and Goals.
To review, we start with the concept that we have “floating” clock positions, based on the initial quality of the Category Group songs as the most important part of the schedule. Then, we use smaller Categories to begin to truly rotate between songs. Finally, we identify attributes to separate transitions.
John reminded users that there are multiple ways in which programmers can define what’s a “great scoring song.” Aside from integrated research from Media Monitors, Mediabase or Test All Music, GSelector also offers custom Research Attributes that can be defined by specific value ranges or users can manually insert their own scores via the Library | Song | Main | Research Groups (Bottom right window). We have a full RCS Live video covering Research Attributes here: https://www.rcsworks.com/rcs-live-research-scheduling-with-gselector/
You may have noticed GSelector 5.0’s slick new look and themes. You can become a Beta user and get advanced access to this new version of GSelector right now! We also have open Betas for Zetta 5.21.2 and Aquira 3.21.2. Don’t forget that RCS is currently hiring rare positions in Support, Development, FTS and more. If you want to work for the worldwide leader in radio software, you can find out more information here./. If you missed any of our previous videos, we have a full archive available for you 24/7 here.