Music Scheduling – Jim Kennedy Consulting

Obviously, the foundation of any music station is, well, the music. The old phrase “garbage in, garbage out”, applies here. If you are playing the “wrong” music, it does not matter how good everything else on the station might be. You are going to be judged by the music!

In many cases, the music may be right, but the rotation of that music isn’t. You may have music scheduling software like Selector, MusicMaster or Power Gold. In some instances, you may have company created software like Stratus, which I helped to develop for Cumulus. Selector is, by far, the most widely used, but they all work in very similar ways. The idea is to use the software to make sure your music schedules correctly to ensure that all your music is getting played as often as it is supposed to and that astute programmers can create the desired sound for their station.

When used correctly,

It should rotate the songs through their designated categories and prevent songs and artists from playing more often than they should.
It will also separate artists using the parameters set up by the PD or MD. This way you can prevent songs from playing too much or not enough.
You can prevent the same artists from coming up too often by designating a specific amount of separation time for those special artists or music genres.
You can “code” songs to reflect their style – for instance a Country sound or a Hip Hop sound, etc.

These things all work very well – in theory. As we know, computer programs deal in “black and white”. They do not have real knowledge of “gray areas.” It’s in these gray areas where station battles can be won or lost. Knowledgeable programmers can make these calls when the scheduler can’t. These “calls” are what keep the station from having a disjointed sound or from playing too many songs in a row that have a very similar sound. This attention to detail is what gives the station its desired variety and should eliminate the sameness of sound which can make the station sound like one long song all day.

I pride myself on being one of the best at creating and maintaining the desired sound for the station that will help maintain the variety aspect and create longer occasions of listening throughout the day. You can’t just hit “F10” (for Selector users) and expect the program to “spit out” a perfect music log. This is where someone with real music scheduling skill and expertise comes in. It takes time to “correct” the log and make sure the station sounds like it should every hour. You must be able to “hear the station in your head.” If your music is not right, nothing else will be! Jim Kennedy Consulting can provide you with the expertise necessary to make your station sound its best – every hour of every day!