MusicVISTA Enhancement: Previous Category Information

 

Another great idea from Australia! Alan Logan at ARN suggested that we be able to view the category each song was in at the time of the test.

We now we have a dedicated MusicVISTA column, PC (Previous Category) for your previous category information.

As you work on the test, you can see where you’re considering placing the song and and also where it came from.

To take advantage of this, you will want to provide me with each song’s current category in addition to the title and artist. I can load this information initially into the Category and /or the Previous Category columns. Normally, I think you’ll want to see it added to both.

Moving ‘Category’ to ‘Previous Category’

This is a new item of the Edit menu. You can copy the Category information to the Previous Category column. Perhaps you’ve moved some music around since building the song test list. You can clean it up the category assignments, then move them to the Previous Category column. Note that this is a permanent change. Any old information will be overwritten.

Previous Category Counts

We have always displayed the current number of songs in each category. The category assignment list has been expanded so that you now see the Previous category totals as well, and the difference between the two.

Summary Report – Preview:

Alan at ARN has also suggested a report that would summarize the category changes that have taken place as a result of implementing the AMT. Once we have a good design for the report I’ll begin work on that as well. I can’t give you a timetable for that.

Include Category Information

I think you’ll find it useful to have your category information in front of you as you review the AMT. This is especially true now that MusicVISTA now supports this in more ways: you can customize the categories in MusicVISTA, show the previous category for each song, and compare before and after song counts for each category.

I urge you to include “category” when you put together your music test list.

NAB Athens Conference Session – Would You Please Help Us?

The 17th. European Radio Conference will be held in Athens October 25-27. I will be presenting a discussion on "Survival Skills: Maximum Quality Programming With Minimum Resources". I would like to ask you for your help. I only need a little something from you, but your input will be greatly appreciated, and will help inform programmers from around the planet. We will be discussing things that can be done that improve programming in a time of tight budgets. We have all had to "dig deep" and use hard work, creativity, cooperation and fresh ideas, often instead of money. What I would like to receive from you is a story about things you have done to positively respond and create great programming despite today's budget problems. This can be in the form of an email. It can be an audio file. It can be a web cam or other video. All are welcome. We're going to use these stories in Athens. And all of them, including the ones we don't have time to discuss during the 1 hour panel, will go on a special web site, along with the panel's presentations and other helpful material. Some ideas about what I am asking you to write me about, to include in our panel presentation: Your station's use of the Internet to inexpensively enhance your bond with your listeners Contests that worked because they were less about the cost of the prize and more about being fun and interesting to the listeners How you work with and improve the air talent you have, when you're not allowed to go out into the marketplace and hire experienced - and expensive - DJs How you have found new ways to get feedback from listeners, when some forms of research are now too expensive How you have found ways to sound better, when you were afraid it would be impossible Things you have found to be "no compromise!" items. In other words, cutting these things will surely lead to disaster. "Do It Yourself" projects you had success with. Did you build your own TV commercial? Organize a free listener concert without spending money? Something else? If you wish your contribution to be anonymous for some reason, just let me know. You wish will be respected. We just need your story. Please email me with at least a note about one of your successes, and audio or video if you have the time. Write to me at: scasey@UpYourRatings.com Thank you for helping us make this a great conference session.

MusicVISTA: Leading Edge Music Research Software Update

An update regarding MusicVISTA, the most advanced music research tool in existence for commercial music stations.

MusicVISTA Enhancement – Custom Categories

Until Now…

MusicVISTA presents a list of 62 possible category choices, A-Z, a-z and 0-9. These can be used to help you organize the music.

Alan Logan at ARN has proposed some great improvements in this area:

· He points out that a more descriptive category name, like “Power 70s” is a lot more user friendly than “Q”.

· And 62 categories can mean a lot of unused categories to scroll through.

Paul Fairburn at Smooth also explained his problem with so many categories. He uses the lower case of a category as a place to put candidate songs, so he may be moving back and forth between, for example, “V” and “v”. Right now, that is a lot of scrolling.

Solution…

There is a new item on the Edit menu, Modify the category list:

This will bring up a list of all your categories.

You can edit this list as you wish. Delete all the categories you don’t want. Modify and/or add as many as you need. Arrange them in whatever order works best for you.

Note: We can also set this up when I build your MusicVISTA analysis. If you let me know what categories you need, I’ll customize MusicVISTA for you.

Enjoy!

Your further ideas and suggestions about this are welcome. As are any other ideas you have to make MusicVISTA a better tool when you implement your music tests.