MetaRadio 2 has introduced new Message Scheduling options. These options allow you to schedule promotional messages on your RDS and Digital Radio outputs. This will allow you to schedule specific messages for days of the week, hours of the day, and even calendar windows. You also get advanced options around how often the message displays.
Message Scheduling will help you deliver targeted messages to your listeners on their radios. You can use this to promote specific show, deliver advertiser messages, and help listeners is aware of upcoming promotions. Message Scheduling in MetaRadio is an excellent tool to enable monetisation of your RDS and Digital Radio messages.
These messages will be inserted in between the messages configured on your Outputs. This means you can have your default messages (including your now-playing data message), and then interleave additional scheduled messages using this Message Scheduler feature.
This guide assume you have already installed MetaRadio, and connected it to your Automation System and Output Systems (e.g. your RDS Encoder).
Scheduling Your First Message
To get started, open MetaRadio Configuration. This can be found via a shortcut on your desktop, or by going to http://127.0.0.1:9606/.
Go to the “Message Scheduler” screen in the left menu.
Click “Add Message“. This opens the Message Configuration screen.
This screen contains all the options to schedule your new message. We’ll explain these messages in detail here:
| Option Name | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Message Text | This field allows you to insert the text which you want to display on you listeners radios. |
| Outputs | Select the Outputs you wish to send this message to. Only certain Output Types are supported – we list these below. |
| Start Date | Select the date and time on which you want this message to begin displaying. The message will not display before this date. |
| End Date | Select the date and time on which you want this message to cease displaying. If you don’t want this message to expire, set a date a long way in the future. |
| Hours | Use this option to only display your message during certain hours of the day. For example, you may wish to display this message only during your Morning show – this case, uncheck all boxes except 6am, 7am, and 8am. |
| Days | Use this option to only display your message on certain days of the week. |
| Minutes Start & Minutes End | If you want to restrict your message to certain minutes during each hour, use this option. For example, if you only want this message to display during your top-of-hour news, you might set these options to ‘0’ and ‘4’ (indicating the message will be shown between :00 and :04 each hour). |
| Insertion Mode | Playing’ messages will only be displayed when a track is currently playing (i.e. a title & artist has been sent and hasn’t expired). ‘Paused’ messages will only be show when no tracks are currently playing (when default/fallback text is usually shown). ‘Manual’ messages will only be shown manually via special merge codes. |
| Start Delay (Seconds) | The message will not be show for X seconds after the status (Playing or Paused) is set. For example, you can use this to show your now-playing data first for a period, before displaying your scheduled message. |
| Message Display Time (Seconds) | How long will the message be displayed before cycling? For example, if you set this field to ’10’, this message will be displayed for 10 seconds before moving onto another message (either a message configured in your Output, or another message scheduled via the Message Scheduler). |
| Wait Time Between Insertions (Seconds) | This message will only be shown once, and then held back for X number of seconds before being considered for display again. You must set this to something sensible, because otherwise this message will always display and never be removed. |
Once you have filled out your settings, press “Save”, and then “Apply and Restart”.
You can repeat this process and schedule as many messages as you like.
FAQs
How does this feature work?
MetaRadio is continually checking the data available for each Output, and deciding which message to display. The sequence of this check is:
- Message Scheduler – do we have a Message Scheduler message that’s currently due to display. If so, display it
- Now Playing – do we have a Now Playing message that’s due to display? If so, display it
- Default/Fallback – do we have a Default/Fallback message to display? If so, display it
The first time one of these conditions is met, the message is displayed until that message expires and we need to find the next message to display.
When a Message Scheduler message has been found, the log entry “Preparing to use Message Scheduler.” is displayed.
Which Output Systems are Supported?
In general, MetaRadio supports Message Scheduling for any output which allows us to send arbitrary text (i.e. systems where we don’t need to send a separate title & artist field all the time).
These systems are currently supported:
- RDS
- Pira (IP)
- Pira (Serial)
- Deva (IP)
- Deva (Serial)
- BWBroadcast (IP)
- StereoTool (IP)
- Audemat (IP)
- Audemat (Serial)
- Audessence (IP)
- Audessence (Serial)
- Inovonics (IP)
- Inovonics (Serial)
- BreakawayOne
- Omnia9xe
- Omnia9sg
- Omnia7
- Ecreso (IP)
- Ecreso (Serial)
- Nautel (IP)
- 2wcom (IP)
- 2wcom (Serial)
- UECP
- Digital Radio
- Paneda DAB+
- Fraunhofer ContentServer DAB+
- HD Radio
- Streaming
- Telos Z/IP Stream
- Orban Opticodec
- Icecast
- Icecast (Streamguys format)
- Shoutcast
- CirrusStreaming
If you’d like Message Scheduler support for an output that isn’t already supported, please let us know via email.