NPR Digital Services Blog

Are you running special holiday programing this season? Here’s how to best make a temporary Program Guide change in both Pro and Basic:

If the hours match up exactly, a simple Program B in place of current Program A:

• Go to the first day that you’d like to show Program B, and edit the current program A.
• It will default to Temporary Edit.
• Enter Program B, including both a start and end date.
• Save. You’re all set, after the temporary edit ends, Program B will ‘go away’ from that date forward. Your grid will go back to showing program A, and Program B will remain historically.
• NOTE: The program grid will now say ‘conflict’ because 2 programs are scheduled at the same time, but that’s okay, it’s an intentional conflict.

Having troubles importing a playlist file? It happens. Here are some things to check on.

• Make sure the header row is labeled correctly, e.g., SONG_TITLE or TITLE, not song.  Header name are noted in your Composer Admin -> Documentation -> Import a playlist.
• Make sure time is formatted HH:MM:SS, and please use military time, no AM or PM.
• Make sure file is a tab-delimited .txt file (or .asc if exporting from Music Master), not .xls, .xlsx, .doc or other format file.
• Extra columns: Occasionally, when working in Excel, you can inadvertently add extra phantom columns by accidentally adding a character where you didn’t mean to. Sometimes opening the file, deleting next few empty columns and resaving will clear that up.
• Character limits: Perhaps you’re exceeding the character limits for a field.  This is less common.
• Still won’t import?  Send it to us at help AT publicinteractive.com, and we’ll take a look.

So what’s the difference between the two, besides cost?  Composer Basic, is, well, a very basic, stripped-down version of Composer Pro. It’s used to submit your data for SoundExchange reporting only, and it doesn’t come with any display options, templates, feeds or widgets. See the side by side comparison here.

In short, with Composer Basic, you can:

• Update reporting contact and stream information.
• Upload playlist and/or streaming log files.
• Choose your reporting periods.
• Access completed SoundExchange reports.
• Enter your weekly program schedule, so we can integrate syndicated playlist information into your SoundExchange reports.
• That’s it.

Composer Pro includes all the SoundExchange reporting features listed above, plus many more. Which one is best? Well, I favor Pro of course, but I’m biased.

• Create and maintain dynamic and fully searchable program guides
• Display viewable and searchable playlists on your website

This sometimes happens, usually when you’re entering playlists manually, rather than importing a file into Composer Pro. Usually, it’s still in there somewhere. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Is it definitely lost? Go to your live program guide, and search for the playlist that way to verify that it’s missing. NOTE: If the start time has not passed, the playlist will not be found.
• Did you make your playlist live? If you’re entering song by song, be sure to click the ‘Make Live’ button. We recommend clicking ‘Make Live’ after you enter the first song.
• Did you recently delete the program? If so, your playlist is probably still in the system, it’s just been ‘orphaned‘. Let us know the name of the program and the air time, and most likely, we can find your playlist and re-associate it with the program. NOTE: Please use the delete program function sparingly, we recommend editing your program and adding an end date instead.

With Composer Pro, you can enter playlist info before, during, or after your show. You’ll find more detailed instructions in our user guide.

Enter Songs Manually

• You can enter song information, one at a time, using our web interface. This works particularly well if you add songs as you go during your show.
• Click Add/Edit playlist, and follow the steps to add songs.
• When adding songs, you can search for the song in database, or enter it manually.
• Be sure to click the ‘Make Playlist Live’ button after you enter the first song.

Importing Playlist Info

Often, it’s faster to import a playlist file. You can import playlists one at a time, or import all the playlists for one day from one file.  When importing a playlist, first create an importable playlist file using Microsoft Excel, a text editor like Notepad or export from compatible Scheduling Software.

A few people have asked about this recently.

Did you accidentally enter your playlist on the wrong date? Do you want to make a copy of a playlist that’s already been entered? Here’s how:

To Correct the Date on a Playlist or Duplicate a Playlist:

• Go to your Composer Admin Tools: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/xxxx/guide.guideadmin (substitute your call letters in for the ‘xxxx’ in the web address)
• Click Export Playlist Data and Run a Report for the date on which the playlist was incorrectly placed. TIP: Set the end date one day later.
• Save this File to your Desktop.
• Modify the Export File to contain the playlist data just for the particular show in question, editing out other program playlists information entered on that day. Be sure to keep the header row.
• Edit the date and time columns as needed, make any other edits and Save as a tab delimited text file.

As you know, playlists for syndicated programs such as Jazz After Hours, Echoes, Sunday Baroque, C24 and many more are now available for your listeners to browse and search from your own Composer Pro program guide.

We recently updated the Syndicated Show functionality a bit, so now you can also choose the episode you air.

• Just make sure your Program Guide is up to date.
• The system will automatically assign playlists for your syndicated programs as they become available. Syndicated show playlists will automatically appear on your program guide with a playlist icon, as they become available.
• If playlists are uploaded ahead of time, they’ll also display in your ‘Now On Air’ widgets.
• To choose a different episode, simply log into your Composer Admin, and go to the Create/Edit Playlist screen.
• Click the choose Syndicated icon , and then select a different episode by ID or date.

More Composer Pro updates going live tomorrow!

Improved look and UI: Updated the look of the program guide templates.

Improved playlist search options: We fixed a few search bugs.

• Contents of syndicated programs now searched.
• Today’s C24 playlists will be included in search results.

New Widget Options:

• Feed links to the last 5 playlists for a program.
• Reminder – you can also feed the next 5 programs coming up. We added a new 9th Parameter, to add this, please see the instructions in your Guide Admin

Syndicated Playlists: Choose Episode

• We’ll continue to auto assign playlists as they come in. Now, you can also choose the episode you air, if you air a repeat, etc.

A quick update on everyone’s favorite topic, SoundExchange reporting. Last quarter, we received data from 288 stations, a small increase from last quarter. Thanks to all of you who submitted data.

We look forward to receiving data from even more stations, including yours, this quarter.  The Q3 deadline is this Friday, October 8, 2010.

See http://soundexchange.publicinteractive.com for details.

Composer Pro and Public Interactive Streaming make the SoundExchange reporting process quick and easy. Clients who use both Composer Pro™ and Public Interactive Streaming don’t need to submit any additional data to SoundExchange for the required quarterly reports.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we can make the SoundExchange process easier for you, contact Marketing and Sales Manager Joe Orlando, at jorlando@publicinteractive.com or 888-729-8809.

We’ve updated the way searching playlists works.

Listener Search:
We are limiting playlist search results for listeners to reduce the load on database. Listeners can search for any 30 days at a time, and can set the date range for those 30 day periods as they choose.

Admin Search:
But never fear, stations can still search their entire playlist archive. We’re also improved search results for admins. If you’re logged in, you can now access all the playlists for a particular program, going back to day one.

• Log into Composer Admin
• Click ‘View your Guide’ in the upper right corner
• Click search playlists. Now when you search, you’ll be able to see all the playlist results. Previously, this was limited to 75 results.