COMMERCIAL BREAKS. How to schedule/program?

[Prognostic]

Hello people!

I'm testing and trying Radio DJ for about two weeks now and I can say I simply love it.  I started to work at one FM radio station in my country and I am thinking about installing Radio DJ there instead of another automation software (which is in a language that I do not understend very good). But after installing, everything on-air should play and sound in the same manner and order as it sounds now. So, I have several important questions, and here I will ask about commercial breaks as it is necessary to maintain them as they are now.

So maybe someone can help and advise HOW to schedule/program the following.
My radio station has three commercial breaks/blocks in an hour - on minutes: 20,  35 and 50. And they look like this:

-IF there are any spots scheduled for the break, THEN - Jingle/Announcer plays
-(spot 1)
-(spot 2)
-(spot 3) etc.
-Station ID plays

IF there are no spots scheduled for the break, THEN:
only Station ID plays.

It would be quite easy to achieve this if there always were some spots in every break. But some of them are empty and only a Station ID is needed. The breaks are very variable and changeable because everytime you get an ad, you look at the timetable and schedule it according to it. If I knew that, let's say, the ad called "Best Shoes" can always be in the break "XX:35", then would be easy. But usually "Best Shoes" will go, for example, like this: MONDAY - 10:20; 12:50; 14:35; 16:20...; TUESDAY: 9:35;  11:20; 13:50...and so on.
So I am a bit confused and cannot figure out how to make some breaks in every hour without having everytime manually to create thousands of events.

Any help and ideas?
(As I understand, there is no such a plugin that can handle traffic breaks?..)

P.S. By the way, best regards from Lithuania (Europe)! I hope I will be able to run Radio DJ here. 

[Jhonny]

Hi and welcom,
I think you can make the best use of events that fit into the rotations.

Or look at the tutorials on Radiodj, DJ garry or On my globe.

[Prognostic]

Yeah, I see that I can do many things with events, but still... I cannot find how to do those 'IF ... --> THEN'.

[Occassion]

So I am a bit confused and cannot figure out how to make some breaks in every hour without having everytime manually to create thousands of events.

Any help and ideas?
(As I understand, there is no such a plugin that can handle traffic breaks?..)

P.S. By the way, best regards from Lithuania (Europe)! I hope I will be able to run Radio DJ here. 

Hi!

Best Solution what I use: make events evertime you want your commercial break in air. In Your case on minutes 20,35 & 50.

First you create playlists: example Commercial Break ..:20 , ..:35, ..:50 and put all the things there what you want. And save it.
Now U just make events. This is only one-time job, Because you never need to modify these events. (while all your things are playlist - you make all changes there! Events are name'd also like playlists.
In Events you put only this commercial playlist.

And whola - all is done!

Next time if you need some changes you open only playlist and make changes, save it and it is on the air!

I use 24h clocks on my schedule: like 13:15 commercial and 14:15 and so on. Always all hours in events. Than you have all your clocks 100% right!

[wagnermendes]

From what I see, users' difficulties lie in the lack of a separate plugin, just for commercials, which would allow us to clear the music playlist without affecting commercials.

[PresidentOfACPJ]

Hi man, if your afraid some DJ delete commercials scheduled to be played, You can set only admin of RadioDJ software to delete commercials, if i am not wrong.

Or you can create a sql to avoid people to delete it too.

Best regards!

[DaveTheRave]

Apart from the RadioDJ admin iterface stopping people from doing stuff, you should also have a sign in your Studio's warning DJs not to mess with settings if thats whats happening 

If they can't respect it they have no place being part of your station 

Hospital radio station I volunteered for were strict about what you could touch and couldn't touch

[mebo870]

There are always those idiots who don't play by the rules. I have seen mixer settings changed by a DJ. The solution a plastic cover over the tone control..... Unbelievable,   but A week later that DJ had a screwdriver with him. He was fired. 

[mebo870]

From what I see, users' difficulties lie in the lack of a separate plugin, just for commercials, which would allow us to clear the music playlist without affecting commercials.

Commercials are always scheduled as events, which start up independently from a music playlist.

[wagnermendes]

A musical rhythm ends a schedule, and
When the next time comes, (example 2:00 pm) the commercials come on and when they finish, another musical rhythm will begin for this new time.
How to create these events?

[Derek]

A musical rhythm ends a schedule, and
When the next time comes, (example 2:00 pm) the commercials come on and when they finish, another musical rhythm will begin for this new time.
How to create these events?

You could create an event to load the commercials to the top of the playlist at a certain time, then the music would continue after the commercials play, or if you want a different music rotation to start after the commercials, make the event load the new rotation first, clear the playlist to load the new style tracks, then have the event load the commercials to the top of the list.
This way the current track will play to the end, then the commercials, followed by the different music if that's what you want. Or add a start playing command in the event to fade the track and start playing the commercials at that time.
If you want a jingle/ident after the commercials and before the music, make the ident load to the top before loading the commercials to the top, then they will play before the ident as they have now been put to the top of the list.

[wagnermendes]

Thank you "Derek" for your help, I would like to know if this is done in a single event, clear the playlist, load the new rotation and commercials, or clear the playlist, load the rotation in another new event and load the commercials?

[Derek]

I would like to know if this is done in a single event, clear the playlist, load the new rotation and commercials, or clear the playlist, load the rotation in another new event and load the commercials?

It can be either, it would be your choice depending on when you wanted the events to happen.
An example of all the steps in one event would be:

1. Load rotation x
2. Clear playlist (to replace tracks selected from the old rotation with tracks from the new rotation into the playlist area)
3. Load jingle/ident top
3. Load commercial 1 to top
4. Load commercial 2 to top
5. Load commercial 3 to top
6. Play - (Only if you wanted to stop the current track playing at that time and start playing the commercials straight away)

This would load the new rotation and refresh the list, play commercial 3,2,1 then the jingle/ident followed by tracks from the new rotation. It's all very flexible and if you have a category of commercials, you could just use one line to select say 3 items (random or least recently played etc etc) from that category to the top instead of having a set file 1,2&3