WBCR-LP 97.7FM, Great Barrington Community Radio

MegaSeg Meeting #1 Minutes

Tech Committee Meeting: MegaSeg
June 26, 2009
Present: Dan White, Ananda Timpane, Asa Hardcastle

There have been several problems recently with MegaSeg not behaving as expected.  This is likely due to a mixture of human error and MegaSeg obtusity.  This meeting was the first of several to resolve the problems.  It is important that the solutions empower the programming committee while not interfering the work of the librarian, since MegaSeg also operates as access to our digital music library.

Primary Concerns: listening quality, organizational requirements, and technical limitations

 

Listening Quality (LQ)

1. playlists that interrupt
Insures content will play when expected but causes awkward transitions, partial songs, and sometimes cuts off content.

2. programmer pre-recording
Excellent tool, but becomes a problem when a programmer does not replace an old show and it plays over and over.

3. Out of Date PSAs
This takes place when an old show with old PSAs is played.  It also takes place when people pre-record PSAs and drop them into automation.

4. Out of Date Promos
Information that has expired and some dated promos play regularly.

5. Out of Date Station IDs
Station IDs that have been playing since the inception of the station and even some that are only a year old have lost some of their freshness.

6. Stacked Station IDs
Due to the MegaSeg ruleset mixed with playlists and time creates stacked Station IDs in some places.

 

Some possible solutions (addressed through Organizational Requirements and Technical Options)

1. Interstitial Music
In order to ease transitions and prevent the 30 seconds of automation, interstitial tracks could be utilized between playlists.  This is part of the solution for LQ#1.  We would attempt to engage Will McDougal to create interstitial music (lots of tracks) because he rocks!  Syndicated shows seem to be between 1 and 2 minutes shy of their full time slot.  This gives us the space for the show intro/legal id and would work well with Interstitial music.

2. Editing
Require programmers to edit shows that will be played in automation.  Shows should leave ~2 minutes of empty space and should contain up to date PSAs.  This helps to solve a problem where playlists that interrupt cut off content, LQ#1.

3. Show Stubs
The day after a show plays, an empty show stub could be scripted to fall into its place on the automation server.  This would prevent repeated content. This solves the problem presented by LQ#2

4. Scripting
Scripts could be created that simply remove PSAs, Station IDs, and Promos that have aged a certain amount.  As part of this reporting would be important.  Programmers whose promos have expired and been deleted would need to be notified. This would be a partial solution to LQ#3, LQ#4, and LQ#5.  However, it does not address promos that have a very specific termination - “Concert this Saturday, June 27th”  and it would also require programmers to edit or re-record show promos more regularly.

5. Minimum Artist Rule
MegaSeg has the capacity to set the minimum amount of time that must pass between playing tracks of the same artist.  If we made our station IDs all have the same artist (e.g. - “WBCR-LP Station ID”) then we would solve LQ#6

6. Regular Show Promo Recording
Encourage programmers to record new show promos on a more regular basis.  (NOTE: We could put these on the website.)

7. Block Programming
Where possible we could use block programming instead of playlists that interrupt each other.  This really only works with shows where we can count on fresh content - DN, FSRN, Media Geek, etc… This approach helps to alleviate some of LQ#1.  It may not be necessary if we implement many of the other listed solutions.

8. Volunteers Needed
- To address the problem of expiring content it is likely that a component of the solution that addresses the inadequacies presented in #4 solution, scripting, someone who can manage and remove content that has an expiration date would be necessary.
- Interstitial music
- PSAs/Promos/Station IDs
- Writing the scripts
- Stub creation
- MegaSeg scheduling

 

→ Posted by wasa on 06/27/2009 at 11:01 AM. Filed under "minutes".