Advert Scheduling

Advert scheduling allows the scheduling of adverts (also called spots, commercials or traffic). This is accomplished by setting up Advert Campaigns with Adverts, then adding an Advert Block to the Playout Log and scheduling the Advert Log for that hour.

Key Concepts

Advert Campaign

An advert campaign represents an advert sales order: a request from a customer to play a set of adverts a specified number of times, during certain times of the day for a period of time. Advert campaigns in the same category will never be scheduled in the same block.

Advert

An advert represents a cut of audio to play as part of an advert campaign. An advert also stores at what times of the day the audio will play, up to a maximum number of plays. Adverts feature a duration field which is used to schedule the advert. This is best kept to a multiple of 5 seconds (for example, 10, 15, or 30 seconds) to ensure that adverts can be fitted into advert blocks of 1 minute, 2 minutes, etc.

Advert Block

An advert block is a sequence of adverts that are played together as part of the advert log.

Advert Log

The historical and future log of the adverts that have played and will play.

Advert Block Item

An Advert Block item can be added to a Clock or the Playout Log in order to play out the adverts.

Adding an Advert Block item to the playout log instructs the playout engine to look up the adverts from the Advert Log for the specified hour and start time and load them into a player. Despite being multiple tracks, advert block items only take up one player: the same player is reused for each advert track.

Adding an Advert Block item to a clock will add the equivalent item to the Playout Log for any hour the clock is scheduled into.

When Advert Blocks are used in Live Assist you will be warned when no adverts have been scheduled in the Advert Log for that block. If you switch Log Scheduler on then advert blocks will automatically be scheduled for the upcoming hour.

Advert Play Report

When adverts have been played it is possible to produce a report of when they were played. This report can be presented to the customer as proof that the adverts were played.

Scheduling adverts step by step

The advert workflow has four stages: set up your campaigns and adverts, add advert blocks to your clocks, then schedule the playout log and the advert log. The Playout Log (your music and content) and the Advert Log (your adverts) are kept deliberately separate, so scheduling your music never disturbs your adverts and scheduling your adverts never disturbs your music. An advert block's start time is what links a block in the playout log to its adverts in the advert log.

1. Create an advert campaign

From the Manage menu, open Advert Campaigns and click Add New. A campaign represents a sales order from an advertiser. Set the Company, a Date Range (the campaign is only scheduled automatically between these dates), and one or more Categories. Adverts in campaigns that share a category are never placed in the same advert block, so competing advertisers are kept apart. See Edit Advert Campaign.

2. Add adverts to the campaign

Within the campaign, click Add New to add an advert and choose its audio with Track or File. PlayIt Live reads the Duration automatically - keep cuts to a multiple of 5 seconds (such as 20, 25, or 30 seconds) so the scheduler can fill blocks to exact minutes. Use the Plays grid to set how many times the advert runs in each hour and day: click a cell - or a row or column heading to set a whole day or hour at once - and type a number, or enter 0 to exclude that slot. For example, you might schedule an advert only during Breakfast and Drive on weekdays. Click Calculate next to Max Plays to cap the total number of plays across the whole campaign. See Edit Advert.

3. Add advert blocks to your clocks

An advert block reserves a space in the hour for adverts to be played together. From the Manage menu open Clocks, edit a clock, and add an Advert Block item. In its settings set the Start Time (an approximate position in the hour, used to tie the block to the advert log rather than an exact air time), the Max Duration (for example 1m30s), and the Max Advert Slots (for example 6). A block can run shorter than its maximum if there are not enough adverts to fill it. Assign the clock to the hours you want adverts in using your clock schedule.

4. Schedule the playout log

When an hour is scheduled, its advert block appears in the playout log as an empty placeholder. At this point the adverts themselves are not yet decided - they can still change right up until air - so the block simply holds a single slot ready to be filled. Despite playing several adverts, the block only uses one player.

5. Schedule the advert log

Fill the blocks with adverts in one of two ways:

• Automatically - switch the Log Scheduler on (the ON/OFF button on the main interface) and PlayIt Live schedules adverts into the upcoming hour for you.
• Manually - from the Manage menu open the Advert Log, choose a date range, and click Schedule. PlayIt Live fills each advert block for those hours from your campaigns.

Once scheduled, the advert block shows its actual duration (which may be less than the maximum) and a pin indicator in the playout log. At air time the scheduled adverts play out one after another from that single advert block item.

Troubleshooting: adverts are not scheduling

If you schedule the advert log (or switch the Log Scheduler on) but no adverts appear, work through the checks below. They are listed roughly in the order the scheduler applies them.

No Advert Block in the playout log for that hour. The scheduler only fills advert blocks that already exist in the playout log. If the hour has not been scheduled, or its clock contains no Advert Block item, there is nothing to fill. Schedule the hour first and confirm an Advert Block item is present.

The Advanced Scheduling module is not licensed. Advert blocks and advert log scheduling require the Advanced Scheduling module. Without it, adverts will not schedule or play. Start a trial from Help > Licensing Information.

The scheduled date range does not cover the blocks. In the Advert Log window, check that the selected date and time range actually includes the hours that contain advert blocks.

The campaign is not eligible for that hour. A campaign is only considered when it is not disabled and the hour falls within its Date Range. Confirm the campaign is enabled and that its start and end dates straddle the hour you are scheduling. See Edit Advert Campaign.

The advert is set to zero plays for that day and hour. Each advert's Plays grid controls which day-and-hour slots it may play in. If the cell for that day and hour is 0 (or blank), the advert is never placed in that hour. Open the advert and check the grid. See Edit Advert.

The advert has reached its Max Plays. Once the number of plays already scheduled or played across the campaign reaches the advert's Max Plays, no further plays are scheduled. Raise Max Plays (or click Calculate) if the cap is too low.

The block is full. The scheduler never exceeds a block's Max Duration or Max Advert Slots. If the block is short or has few slots, some adverts are left out. An advert whose duration is longer than the block's Max Duration can never fit, so keep advert durations comfortably within the block length.

Two adverts share a category. Adverts in campaigns with the same Category are never placed in the same block. If several eligible adverts share a category, only one of them goes into each block - add more blocks in the hour, or review your categories.

The hour was already scheduled and is not being overwritten. When the Log Scheduler fills adverts automatically, it will not replace advert log items that are already present for an hour. If you changed a campaign after the hour was scheduled, the existing items remain until you reschedule manually: in the Advert Log window, Unschedule the range and then Schedule it again.

Related Pages

• Advert Campaigns
• Advert Log
• Advert Play Report