EditMust Fill
If you are in a satellite operation scenario where it’s possible that you don’t have enough spots to cover the required breaks you have a few options.
EditAutomation System
The first is to review whether or not your
AutomationSystem has a “must fill” satellite mode where it will automatically substitute/insert material for times when the material is invalid/missing. The
AutomationSystem knows the exact length of the spots, the appropriate amount of time to be filled and can possibly do this without using any additional material by using stretch/squeeze capabilities. The
AutomationSystem is closer to the problem, so it can best handle the solution.
EditAutomatic Must Fill
If your
AutomationSystem does not have the capability to automatically "fill dead time" (or you do not wish to use your
Automation_Systems ability to solve this problem), you can leverage the built in “must fill” capability. RadioTraffic can automatically place designated spots in designated avails, or you can manually make fill spots available for placement on your
logs.
Preparing for Automatic Must FillYou will need to prepare your
copy in a manner that can be leverage by the automatic must fill processes that occurs upon locking a
log.
- Create a customer named “Fill” (optional - see best practices below).
- Open the “Fill” customer
- Add any and all copy (cart #’s) that you want to use as must fill material. Normally this will be PSA’s, promos, liners, jingles, zingers, etc. Be sure to have material that is appropriate for your avail type operations (60, 30, 15, 10, 5, etc.). These pieces of copy and associated cart numbers do not need to be unique across all of your customers. We are just placing all of them on the “Fill” customer for ease of operations and spot management.
- Be sure to also check (enabled) the “Usable by MUSTFILL.” check box on each piece of copy.
You will need to prepare your
logs so that the necessary
avails are flagged as needing to be filled (must fill).
- Open the Log.
- Right click on an avail and select the "Modify" tool:
- Enable the "Must Fill" option.
- Repeat for each avail that must be completely filled.
At this point automatic must fill processing will occur whenever you lock the
log. This process will randomly pull (and recycle) from the “fill list” to fill as much of the “must fill”
avails as possible (limited based on length of
copy).
CS If you “reverse a Log”, these items will also be removed providing the ability for you to place additional spots in these Avails. CS In order to successfully fill, fill material is not able to recognize / honor conflict separation rules. Doing so would effectively render fill useless. In an effort to create a "clean sound", some simple separation rules are in place and will be used when possible - however, the results of this are limited by the amount and variety of
copy that is available.
Best Practices / Additional AdviceWe recommend using as much PSA and promo material as possible for must fill. Variety will produce better results.
We recommend not utilizing actual advertiser material. Using
customer specific
copy can easily produce undesirable results unless extreme thought, preparation and care be applied.
Before you decide to utilize advertiser material as must fill, consider reducing the availability of
avails in your
logs.
If you do chose to use advertiser material, be sure to do so across a sizable number of active
customers.
EditBonus Material
If you desire to have more control over the placement of the material, you’ll need to treat this material as “bonus”. To do this, you’ll create additional non-billing
Contracts to generate the spots that can be used. Determine the number of spots you’ll think you’ll need so that the material is available in the bump list and/or make good list. It is possible to “pre-load” the make good list with this material by entering a
Contract in the (slight) past; doing so will automatically move the spots for prior days into the make good list. Periodically, these extra (“bonus”) spots will need to be cleaned up and the “bonus”
Contracts might need to be adjusted based on actual need. The more spots that exist on the make good list, the longer it will take to load the
logs.