At WUMD we use Natural Software’s Natural Music 5 scheduler to generate the daily logs. NM5 uses hour ‘clocks’ to create a template for an hour. You then assign these different clocks to each hour of the day for the week. In general, we use the same template each week, but due to the different programs, public affairs and genre’s, there are currently 49 individual clocks.
The basic format is the same each hour, breaks at the top of hour, 20 past and 40 past. Promos and PSAs and the legal ID usually occur at the same time each hour. I thought it would be nice to have a “crossview” report which would show the days across and the hours down. It reads the ‘note’ part of the clock, since we use OMT/iMediaTouch, I can use the information to create a useful report showing certain commands being issued to On-Air.
Here’s a small sample of the report. This shows one hour across three days. The full report shows all hours across all days. The clock ID is centered in the frame above the hour (i.e. M7).
--------+-------M7-------+-------T7-------+-------W7-------+ 07:00:00| MOVE TO MARK| MOVE TO MARK| MOVE TO MARK| | DJ START AUT| DJ START AUT| DJ START AUT| |LID 0000 |LID 0000 |LID 0000 | |UTL ANN2 |UTL ANN2 |UTL ANN2 | | SYNC DISABLE| SYNC DISABLE| SYNC DISABLE| |POD KN[WeekNum] |POD MC[WeekNum] |PAF WM[WeekNum] | | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | |AL |AN |AN | | |AL |AL | | | | | 07:19:00|S* 19:00 MOVE U|S* 19:00 MOVE U|S* 19:00 MOVE U| | | | | 07:20:00| SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | |UTL W[Day] |UTL W[Day] |UTL W[Day] | |PRM 0000 |PRM 0000 |PRM 0000 | | | | | 07:20:30|PRM 2100 |PRM 2100 |PRM 2100 | |UTL ANN1 |UTL ANN1 |UTL ANN1 | | | | | 07:25:00|S* 25:00 MOVE U|S* 25:00 MOVE U|S* 25:00 MOVE U| | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | |JA |JN |JN | |AL |AL |AL | | | | | 07:32:00|S* 28:30 MOVE U|S* 28:30 MOVE U|S* 28:30 MOVE U| | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | |S3: 28:58 Sync t|S3: 28:58 Sync t|S3: 28:58 Sync t| |PRM CJ[WeekNum] |PRM WW[WeekNum] |PRM 4100 | |UTL W[Day] |UTL W[Day] |UTL W[Day] | |UTL ANN1 |UTL ANN1 |UTL ANN1 | | SYNC DISABLE| SYNC DISABLE|PS | |PRO PILE |PRM 0000 | SYNC DISABLE| |POD BK[WeekNum] |POD CS[WeekNum] |PRM 0000 | | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE |POD TW[WeekNum] | |AL |AN | SYNC ENABLE | | |AL |AN | | | |AL | | | | | 07:39:00|S* 39:00 MOVE U|S* 39:00 MOVE U|S* 39:00 MOVE U| | | | | 07:40:00| SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | |PS |PS |PS | |PS |PS |PS | | | | | 07:41:00|UTL ANN1 |UTL ANN1 |UTL ANN1 | | | | | 07:45:00|S* 45:00 MOVE U|S* 45:00 MOVE U|S* 45:00 MOVE U| | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | |JA |JN |JN | |AL |AL |AL | | | | | 07:59:55|S* 58:30 MOVE U|S* 58:30 MOVE U|S* 58:30 MOVE U| | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | SYNC ENABLE | |S3: 59:58 Sync t|S3: 59:58 Sync t|S3: 59:58 Sync t|
You can see how easy it is to verify that certain cuts are playing at certain times. It also shows where the On-Air sync commands are, not only the enable and disable, but the different ‘S’ sync commands. I have found the report helpful in finding typos, incorrect category or cut IDs, and even just wrong scheduled times.
