Almost all radio stations today use some form of broadcast automation. Although some only use small scripts in audio players, a more robust solution is using a full radio automation suite. There are many commercial and free radio automation packages available.

Radio software history

Radio software allows AM and FM broadcasting to reproduce music and voices from the computer’s hard disk instead of using CD, MD, tape recorders or the old cartridge tape (see

Fidelipac The Fidelipac, commonly known as a "NAB cartridge" or simply "cart", is a magnetic tape sound recording format, used for radio broadcasting for playback of material over the air such as radio commercials, jingles, station identifications, and mu ...

). Usually the radio stations stores all advertising campaigns and most of the music in hard disk. Then, instant replay of all the recorded material is done from a keyboard or with a click of the mouse. Now the PC is part of every AM and FM broadcasting,

webcasting A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web ...

podcasting A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

system around the world. Radio software not only reproduces audio. It is possible to create a “playlist” that can reproduce automatically, without a

board operator Live event support includes staging, scenery, mechanicals, sound, lighting, video, special effects, transport, packaging, communications, costume and makeup for live performance events including theater, music, dance, and opera. They all share th ...

, a complete radio program, including meteorological announces, advertising campaigns, music tunes, satellite network connection, etc. Then, 24 hours radio stations are possible, also in small towns that can not afford to have operators and speakers all around the clock. Standard PCs are connected in a LAN network to be used on the

master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as sw ...

, production, news, administration, etc. This technology is claimed to be invented in Buenos Aires by Oscar Bonello in 1989. The first radio software for automation, using lossy compressed digital audio codecs, was named Audicom and was internationally introduced at the 1990 National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Atlanta, USA. The world's first radio station to use it was one in San Francisco, California. The basis of the Audicom was the first application, targeted at radio automation, of the audio bit compression technology used to reduce the amount of data. Bonello delivered the first radio automation working technology using the masking curves published by Richard Ehmer.“Masking by Tones vs Noise Bands”, Richard Ehmer, ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of America'', September 1959 See also earlier developments of a music scheduling system such as of the US company

Radio Computing Services RCS, originally Radio Computing Services, is a provider of scheduling and broadcast software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built ...

in 1979. Nowadays with invention of the

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

bit compression technology and standard audio cards there are a lot of automation software providers at the market. Some systems includes administration facilities for the traffic department, disc jockey schedule, live assist windows and even artificial intelligence automation control.

Main components

Media database

The basic thing that a radio station does is to broadcast audio to its listeners. Audio can range from a simple talk over, a song or jingle to a sophisticated program with authored content. For profit radio stations rely on advertisements, or commercials, to generate revenue and sustain their operations. The media database stores details on media files, typically mp3 encoded files. Attributes contain, but not limited to, file name, name of the song or audio file, type of media, its duration, etc... Media records can have different types: * Song * Commercial * Jingle * Promotion * Recorded program

Media editing

Media files can be edited prior to playback or broadcast. Typical audio editing features exist in most radio software solutions. In addition, radio software allows users to provide metadata for audio files, such as intro and outro positions within the file. Some radio software contain multi-track editors that allows users to set the mix between two songs as well as audio volume levels.

Scheduling

Radio scheduling starts with a grid. A grid will contain one or more schedules. Grids span a long time period, usually no less than three months. Schedules will in turn contain a list of programs. Schedules span a short time period, typically one day. Programs are usually one to four hours in duration, typically one hour. Programs will contain a list of program elements. This list of program elements become the play list that radio software loads and automates. Scheduling songs, external audio, or live shows, differs to scheduling commercials. The scheduler is used for defining program schedules but not to schedule commercials. There is a special module for commercial scheduling.

Commercials

The commercials module in radio software allows users to link commercials to campaigns and set their schedules for playback at future pre-defined times. The more advanced radio software solutions allow users to schedule commercials in bulk or through integration.

Media playback

Is the component of a radio software that allows user to playback media files in full automation or manually on demand. These modules typically contain audio players, a visual representation of the currently playing audio file, a queue of songs to be played in sequence, timers and clocks displays, as well as a browser for audio files in the media database with search capabilities.

News

News modules are used to create news sessions and news articles which can be read by news readers on air. These modules allow users to attach audio files to the news article to playback during a live news session.

Broadcast recorder

Records audio 24/7 in compressed format, splits, names, and archives files according to a user-defined structure. Radio stations usually maintain at least three years worth of 24/7 recorded broadcast.

Broadcast streaming

This module of radio software allows users to publish an audio stream of the playback to a pre-defined streaming server.

Reports

Reports provide users with capabilities to analyze and summarize events generated by users or the radio software itself.

Notes

{{Reflist Broadcast engineering