The "# TimeAnnounce" Feature (Command Center Only)

One item that is often sacrificed in radio automation systems is the ability to tell listeners the time. That's unfortunate, since keeping listeners updated on the time is very helpful, especially listeners who are tune-in while running around getting ready for work, commuting, boating, fishing, camping, etc.

Time announcements are not only useful to listeners. They also serve your radio station well. If you announce the time every day prior to playing specific programming, you begin to build a relationship in your listeners' minds between that programming and a particular time of day. More will tune back in to catch that same programming again, once they have made that association in their minds; and that helps build listenership, sales, and your bottom line.

The TuneTracker™ "TimeAnnounce" feature gives your station the ability to provide this important service. By adding just a single line to your format clock, you will cause a friendly announcer voice that sounds professional without being stilted or "automated-sounding" to announce the time. Each of our files is a full announcement, so there is none of that "stitched-together" sound you get from automation software that uses chunks of audio to "build the time."

Here's the simple syntax you use to add a time announcement to a log:

# TimeAnnounce

The TimeAnnounce files must be stored in the location specified in TuneTracker System Preferences. If you store them somewhere else, be sure to change the path in preferences to match the new location.

CUSTOMIZED TIME ANNOUNCEMENT SERVICES

For a very affordable price, TuneTracker Systems will record a full set of time announcement files using your radio station and/or slogan. See this page for details.


SUBSTITUTING WITH YOUR OWN TIME ANNOUNCEMENT FILES

TuneTracker™ has a place in Preferences where you can specify a different default path/foldername for your time announcement files. You'll need to update this text box if you decide to move your TuneTracker installation to a new place on your hard drive, change to a personally-recorded set of time announcement files during a particular pre-recorded DJ show, or if you want to use an alternative set of time announcement files provided by a third party.

If you have a set of time announcement files you would like to use in place of the provided ones, this can be done by copying the replacement files to a folder on your BeOS installation and renaming them using our simple naming scheme, where 0000 is "twelve o'clock," 01:10 is "one-ten," 11:21 is "eleven twenty-one," etc.

CUSTOMIZING TIME ANNOUNCEMENTS

We recommend you assure you have a backup copy of your "timeannounce" folder prior to trying any of the following ideas/thought-starters.

Since our time announce files are nothing more or less than simple audio files, it's easy to create your own if you'd like to, to match your voice while your pre-recorded voice tracks are running. Listen to a few of ours first so you know how much of a gap to leave at the start and end of each cut. Make sure to normalize your announcements so the peaks are at maximum. Use the same filenaming scheme as we used or the files will not be accessed by TuneTracker. If you use a set of files acquired elsewhere, again, you will need to rename them to match our naming scheme. The 3rd party files will also need to be recorded in one of these file formats: WAV, AIFF, ADPCM, IFF-SVX, MP3, MP2, or Ogg Vorbis.

In addition to just a simple replacement of the files, you can also do some exciting formatic things. Consider these examples that could be inserted into automated information blocks:

•   "It's 8 O'clock, from WXYZ, Anytown, AnyState" (legal station ID)
  
•   "It's 3:19 on the station with weather every twenty minutes. The latest update, next."
  
•   "It's twenty-five past eleven. News in five minutes on WXYZ radio."

Remember the same time announcement files used from midnight until noon are used again between noon and midnight, so if you reference "weather coming up after the break" at 8:03 a.m., you'll need to assure that is true at 8:03 p.m. as well.

For situations like those just described, you probably won't want to change the default time announce folder in Preferences. We've provided a nice alternative. Just create a folder for your special little mini-batch of time announcements and add the path to the folder on the # TimeAnnounce line. So if it's for the 5 P.M. News Hour, for example, you might want to make up a batch of special "newstime" time announces and keep them in their own folder, and then use this simple syntax:

# TimeAnnounce /boot/5pmTimeAnnounce/

CUSTOM TIME ANNOUNCEMENT SERVICE

If you need a custom set of custom time announcements professionally recorded, TuneTracker Systems offers that service at a reasonable cost. Call, tell us what you need, and request a quote. 920-273-0543


TIME ANNOUNCEMENTS, "MILITARY STYLE"

Some military and international stations may wish to use 24-hour time announcement format, and even give the time in Greenwich Mean Time (UTC) rather than giving the time for a local time zone. This is fully supported. In Command Center System Prefs is a feature on the first tab that lets you choose whether to display time in 12-hour or 24-hour format. If you choose the 24-hour format, and use the TimeAnnounce feature with your own recorded time announcements, Command Center will give the time in "international," "military time." Use whatever wording suits your situation:

"The time, fourteen-hundred hours"
"The time is oh-eight-hundred hours, 32 minutes"
"It's seventeen-forty-three"
"Current time is twenty-one-seventeen, UTC"
"Our time is now oh-nine-twelve, Greenwich Mean Time"

If you set your BeOS operating system time preferences to indicate London, England as the time zone, then your system, and Command Center, will be set to Greenwich Mean Time, meaning your announcements will truly match the international time standard.


BE CREATIVE!

Come up with your own exciting ways to use this time announcement feature! And if you do, e-mail us and tell us about them. We'll pass them along in our newsletter and tipsheets.

You can see more information about time announcements on the TuneTracker Commands" page.



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