So you’re thinking about changing traffic systems?

Changing a traffic system is a nightmare in any radio station. Here’s how we can make it easier.

If you’re like most stations, your billing-accounting-traffic system is the structure around which you built the entire radio station. Everything is affected by traffic from sales to operations. If you’re fortunate, you have had the same operator running the traffic department for many years. It’s usually a woman and in the vernacular of the trade she is known as the “Traffic Lady”.

Let’s face it. I don’t care that you own your radio station. It’s actually run by your traffic person. She decides what gets on the air and the order in which it is going to happen. She corrals the sales department, sort of like herding cats, but somehow gets them to translate scrawled orders on cocktail napkins into logical traffic orders which she then inputs into the system. Her job is at once critical and demanding. She has little time to learn new things, and little patience for change. Any new traffic system means she has to do all the work she always did while learning the new system.

Smarts Broadcast Systems put out our first traffic system in the early 1980’s and we now have a vastly updated product called “Smarts – The Second Generation”. Elsewhere on this site you can download an actual working copy and see this product for yourself. It’s not only state of the art, it’s also one of the least expensive systems on the market. With the consolidation of traffic systems now under way and pressures applied for stations to change systems, many operations are now doing the unthinkable and looking at alternative traffic programs.

What you can’t see on our website, however, is the way we bring Smarts alive in your station. Our technical support people in the traffic department are primarily people who at one time were traffic directors of small and medium market radio stations. They know where the problems will be and where they are going to need to help your traffic operator. They can predict problem areas and work them out before they happen. They are expert at the process of converting stations over to Smarts. They can’t take all the sting out of the change, but they can and do put a positive spin on the experience. Please contact us regarding Smarts – The Second Generation. We’ll be happy to demonstrate the program and speak with your traffic people about how it can help your operation.

John F. Schad

Smarts Broadcast Systems