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Software and services for the radio industry.

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Glossary

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WORK IN PROGRESS - Please understand that we are actively rewriting much of our documentation and this page is currently "under construction"; if there's anything that you'd like to see added to and/or expanded upon, please let us know by sending us a smile.

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Account Executive

Also referred to as AE. See Sales Person.

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Administrator

The Administrator role is the person within your organization that is ultimately responsible for the integrity, stability and overall operation of the system. Only one person can be assigned to this role. This role is also referred to as the primary operator. See Users.

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Affidavit

Statement attesting to the airing of a spot schedule.

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Agency (Local)

A more Localized agency that deals with regional companies to purchase airtime. The smaller market and influence gives the radio stations more leverage in the negotiation process.

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Agency (National)

Person or company that we refer to as an Agency that places advertising on your Station on behalf of a Customer and usually provide Copy as part of the service they render to the Customer. In exchange, they are usually allowed an Agency Commission discount on the gross Invoice amount; collecting the full amount from the Customer and paying the Station the net amount.

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Aging

Represents how old something is.

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Air Log

A locked log outbound to Automation.

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Archive/Archived

See Archiver

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As-Play

An Inbound Log from Yesterday for Reconciliation.

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Automation

Equipment system designed to play prepackaged programming.

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Avail

A slot that represents a placeholder for a spot.

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Barter

Exchange of airtime for programming or goods.

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Begin of Schedule

Invoices are generated before the start of the schedule so that payments (prepayment) can be applied immediately. Subsequent (zero dollar) invoices will be generated to reflect the spots ran.

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End of Schedule

Invoice will not be able to be finalized until the entire contract has executed.

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Billing Cycle

Start to end date that represents a billing period.

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Bonus Spot

A copy that is played without invoice.

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Break

A collection of Avails.

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Broadcast

Invoices are generated using the Broadcast calendar where the end end date is the the last Sunday of the month.

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Broadcast Month

Month starts on the Monday after the last Sunday of the prior calendar month and always ends on the last Sunday of the month. It will have either 4 or 5 standard weeks and is used by most advertising Agencies.

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Bumping

A spot that has been removed from active logs.

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Calendar billing



Invoices are generated using the standard calendar method using the first and last day of the calendar months. Edit

Campaign

See Contract.

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Clock

Wheel indicating sequence or order of programming ingredients aired during one hour.

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Confirmation

Printed contract.

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Conflict

When defined, will provide a means in which the scheduling engine will protect related products from appearing close to one another on the Log. For example, you might not want car dealerships to run back to back (or very close) to one another. This protection works on a Contract by Contract basis and is in addition to Customer separation.

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Contract

A written or spoken agreement, especially one concerning, sales, or tenancy, that is used by the radio station.

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Co-Op/Cooperative

Arrangement between retailer and manufacturer for the purpose of sharing radio advertising expenses.

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Copy

Advertising copy refers specifically to the text of an advertisement. This term may encompass the script or the voice over on a radio add.

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Customer

Customer represents and advertiser, client or entity (other than Agency) that is requesting services to be rendered. The services requested are ultimately entered as a Contract on their Customer account.

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Day Part

In radio a fairly-standard division (based on audience composition) of a 24-hour day for scheduling commercials. 1. Radio (only weekdays): (1) Morning drive: 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. (2) Daytime: 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (3) Afternoon drive: 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (4) Nighttime: 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m. (5) Overnight: 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Wikipedia.)

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Effective

When the term "effective" is applied to the terms Gross and Net; the meaning of these two terms is modified slightly to reflect the amount, as we currently can determine, that will be ultimately billed (assuming, of course, that no other changes occur between now and the time that it completes). In other words, any modifications, cancellations and trashing of individual spots/billing entries will be removed from the base Gross and Net values... resulting in the reflected Effective Gross and Effective Net amounts.

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Flight

See Contract.

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Gross Amount (Invoice)

The total of all charges on an Invoice before any discounts and/or Agency Commission are deducted and before any Taxes are applied.

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Insertion Order

Term for orders from national agencies.

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LMA

In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (or local management agreement, abbreviated as an LMA) is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. It is a sort of lease or time-buy. (Wikipedia.)

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Make Good

A spot that scheduled to be run, didn’t run and the date has passed.

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Net Amount (Invoice)

The gross Invoice amount after any discounts and/or Agency Commission have been deducted and before any Taxes are applied.

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Non-Traditional Revenue

Also known as NTR. See Off-Air Revenue.

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Off-Air Revenue

Sometimes referred to as OAR. Revenue that is produced outside of normal radio commercials.

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Order

See Contract.

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Primary Operator

The person in your organization whom is responsible for configuring the system, act as the primary conduit between RT and your organization and whom has the final say in how the system is utilized. The person whom is identified as the primary operator will be set up as the Administrator role. See Administrator.

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PSA

Public Service Announcement; noncommercial message.

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Projections

Projected billing.

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Reconcile

Verifying spots on the log that’s been played.

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Revenue Source

Provides the ability to filter sales Reports based on the values such as Local Direct, Local Agency, Regional Direct, Regional Agency, National Direct, National Agency, Other Direct, Other Agency, etc. A Contract can be assigned to a single Revenue Source.

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Revenue Type

When you create a Contract, you will need to specify a Revenue Type; which is most often is used to designate a Contract as cash or trade. This value will define how Agency Commission and sales Commission is applied; items marked as "trade" will treat all values on the Contract as zero dollars for the purposed of Commission calculation (essentially turning off Commission for the Contract).

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Rotation

A List-of-copy that can be run.

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Run of Schedule (ROS)

Run of schedule is an authorization from an advertiser to play their commercials at times that a network or broadcaster chooses (any time the network decides is available).

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Sales Person

A person whom is responsible for a customer account typically part of a sales team that more often than not earns a commission for each sale made and is typically responsible for collecting copy and following up on collecting "past due" payments. Note that this person does not necessarily interact directly with the system, but could. See Salespeople.

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Scripts

The written part of a copy. Usually to be attached to an invoice for billing.

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Simulcast

Same show running on multiple stations and platforms.

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Spot

Commercials; paid announcements. See Copy, Contract, and Rotation.

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Spot Set

Group or cluster of announcements; stop set.

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TAP

Total Audience Plan; spot package divided between specific dayparts; 1/3 AAA, 1/3 AA, 1/3 A.

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Template

The Log generation engine uses Templates to determine where spots need to be placed. Additionally, when exporting the Log to an AutomationSystem, several other elements can be included (depending on the target AutomationSystem). There are essentially two types of Templates; a Log template (Monday through Sunday) and a edit template that can be used to create other Templates and/or be used when building your daily Log as a quick replacement to sections on a pre-generated Log (Log template).

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Till Further Notice (TFN)

Till Further Notice; without specific kill date.

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Traffic

Station department responsible for scheduling sponsor announcements.

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Trash/Trashed

Trash or Trashed is a term and usage in RT. In RadioTraffic we don't like to delete anything so we created the ability to put almost everything into a "Trashed" category where you can go back and get it later. You can pull up Trash/Trashed in quite a few areas of RT right along with active and archived things. Sometimes all together which required us to make the Trash/Trashed look different.

The Trash/Trashed will always have a line through its name. Trash/Trashed.

Trash/Trashed has no system like Archived. You the operator have to place something into the Trash/Trashed category and only an operator can remove it.



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Underwriter

Program sponsor; noncommercial financial sponsor.

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Underwriting

Method by which noncommercial stations seek financial support from commercial sponsors.

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weekly billing

Billing done on a week to week basis.

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References

O'Donnell, L. M., Hausman, C., Benoit, P. (1989) Radio station operations: Management and employee perspectives. Wadsworth: Belmont, CA.

Keith, M. C. and Krause, J. M. (1989). The Radio Station Focal Press: Boston.

http://www1.udel.edu/nero/Radio/glossary.html