Smartcaster Breaks

A Basic Overview of The Concept of Breaks

Sometimes, on any computer at any time, problems arise. Weird things will start happening, the grey error screen will appear, or the computer locks up. In defense of the computers, we try to make them as reliable as possible, but sometimes things which we cannot predict happen. In this case a reboot is in order.

For some of our customers, the concept of a break is very foreign and not easily understood. This problem is made far more complex by the fact that a break to a satellite station means something quite different from a break to a live station, and something different yet from a break in a Music On Hard Drive system.

Breaks in satellite operations are easy to understand. The satellite signal feeds the air until it's time for the commercial cluster to play. The satellite sends a tone or other type of signal, and the automation system switches from the satellite and to another source to play the local "break." At the end of the break the system switches back to satellite.

In this context there is an obvious difference between the satellite feed and the local feed, and the concept of a break is more clear cut.

Music On Hard Drive, however, involves a slightly different concept. Music On Hard Drive systems require that everything, both the music and the spots, be in a sequence for the playback. So if you tell your computer to play three songs followed by three spots, you might have something like this:

Song 1
Song 2
Song 3
Spot 1
Spot 2
Spot 3

The computer will simply go down the list and play the audio cuts in the sequence they are in.

So, it is possible to manually program traffic and music information into a sequence in the computer that will play the way you want it to.

However, most stations do not work like this. Historically one department is responsible for traffic, and another department is responsible for choosing music. The two jobs are rarely done by the same individual.

With the advent of the computer, that same division of labor was carried forward to today's computer programs. You can get a billing, accounting and traffic system, or you can get a music rotation system, but no one has a single system that will do both well.

What is needed is a way to allow the separate departments to produce the logs or the music playlists, and meld them together into a final list for playback on the air. Here is where the concept of breaks comes in for Music On Hard Drive stations.

The traffic system will be generating spot breaks that are identical to the historical concept of a break. It is a stopset of spots that will play in sequence between other program segments. For example, a program log might have an hour that looks like this:

In the above example, there are four commercial stopsets or breaks in the hour. They fall at 11:00, 11:10, 11:35, and 11:50 am. Each has three spots, and assuming 60 second spots, each stopset is three minutes long.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the station the Program Director is preparing tomorrow's music playlist. The playlist has historically been nothing more than a sequence of music to be played on the air. However, digital audio requites something else, it requires place markers of some kind for insertion of the spot breaks from log.

In other words, a playlist that looks like this will work fine for live programming, but not work for automated functions:

Song 1
Song 2
Song 3
Song 4
Song 5
Song 6
Song 7
Song 8
etc.

The playlist has all the songs in sequence, but no way to integrate the commercial content.

What does work is to place break markers in the music. For example:

Song 1
Song 2
Song 3
break
Song 4
Song 5
Song 6
Song 7
break
Song 8
Song 9
break
Song 10
Song 11
Song 12

In the above example, the break markers are after the first three titles, then after four more titles, then after two more titles. We have deliberately shown you an hour with only three breaks to illustrate the most common problem in handling interfaces. Note that the program log is calling for four breaks in the hour, but the music list is only calling for three. This will not work. It is very important that the playlist generating program produce the same number of breaks as the log. Nothing else will work.

In a Music On Hard Drive system, you can identify a break by the change from data fed from the traffic computer (generally spots, PSA's, etc) to the data fed from the music computer (primarily songs, perhaps jingles, liners, etc.)

Each file must be a mirror image of the other. Care should be taken by the Music Programmer that the proper number of songs are clustered between breaks, so as to approximate the break time on the program log.

When the log and the music are mixed, you will have a log that is in total sequence, with all program elements in the line. It will look like this:


Spot 1
Spot 2
Spot 3
song
song
song
Spot 4
Spot 5
Spot 6
Spot 7
song
song
Spot 8
Spot 9
Spot 10
etc.

Remember, a break in a Music On Hard Drive system is the point programming changes from the log driven information (commercials) to the music driven information, and when it changes back the other way.

Live Stations

The concept of a break is different yet for the live station. Consider a typical early morning new block:

In the above example, there are a number of challenges on how to configure the breaks. ABC news hits at the top of the hour, presumably from a satellite feed and runs for five minutes without a local break insertion. There are two 60 second spots that have to run after the ABC news but before the local news.

During the local news, there are two sponsorships. Each spot would normally run independently in breaks in the newscast. The same is true of the single sponsor of the 5 minute sports show.

It is possible to program each cluster of spots as a break. In other words, one break will be filled with the two spots after ABC news. One break will just have one spot in it, the first sponsorship of the local news. One break will have another single spot, the second sponsorship of the local news, etc.

It is somewhat time consuming to set up breaks in this manner, and there is a maximum of 12 breaks in any hour. Smartcaster customers, however, can subdivide the breaks by using the live screen in the system. This greatly simplifies the process.

We hope this document will streamline your interfacing to Smarts and Smartcaster products. We are here to help you in any way.

Feel free to call the support line if you have any questions or comments about this, or any other problems with the Smartcaster. Our support line is 800-765-2930, our fax number is 800-498-0618, and our email address is support@smartsbroadcast.com.

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