The Problem of the Original Paradigm
When the first music scheduler was introduced, music directors found it took over an hour to edit each day's playlist, fixing things the software did wrong.

Three decades later, scheduling software has evolved, been updated and copied many times over. And still most music directors average more than an hour editing each day's playlist.

Something is odd about that. Software upgrades and improvements are supposed to to make the tool more efficient for the user.

In my opinion, the fact that this hasn't happened with other music scheduling software is related to a fundamentally inefficient design. Now that may seem a rather cheeky statement to you, but stay with me a moment, please.

In essence, the designated gameplan has been this: The software schedules the entire day's music log. When it comes to slots where all the song choices it has would violate a formatting rule, the software is instructed to do one of two things. Either it leaves the slot unscheduled, or it looks at a rules hierarchy and schedules the "least objectionable" song in the slot and flags it.

When the software has finished its initial run, the music director digs into the playlist for editing. He finds all the unscheduled slots, then searches the library finding songs that will fit each one. Or, she goes to each 'flagged' slot and decides if a fix needs to be made. Another song may be found and placed into the slot, or several songs might moved around to adjust the flow and song sequence.

It is not the scheduling that takes so much time. Computers are fast. It is the editing that impedes efficiency.

With any music scheduling software, one thing is certain: There will be many slots encountered during each scheduling run where all the song choices available would violate one or more of your formatting rules. Some human interaction and editing is always needed to make corrections, adjustments and produce an acceptable playlist.

The Music 1 Paradigm
M1 is based on the old axiom: It takes less time to do it right as you are building something than it does to build it quick and then fix the problems.

As M1 is scheduling, when it finds a slot where all the song choices would violate a formatting rule, it does not leave the slot empty. It does not violate a formatting rule to select the "least objectionable" song. Rather, it stops there, shows you the problem and you decide how to resolve it.

The point is this: to get the ideal music selection and flow for each day, some human editing will be necessary. It is then a matter of whether you want to make edits after the software has scheduled the entire day (the old way), or make the edits during the scheduling run (the Music 1 way).

Prime Benefits Of The Music 1 Way
Benefit #1 - Time Saving
Typically, radio music directors using other schedulers average over an hour editing each day's playlist. Music 1 users average a quarter-hour a day.

Benefit #2 - Rotational Accuracy
Editing after the scheduling run is inherently problematic and here's why: When the software has scheduled tomorrow's playlist, all the songs at the top of each category stack would normally be scheduled on the overnight show the day after tomorrow. If you spot a problem while editing tomorrow's log, then search to find another song to put into the slot, any and every song you find will be outside the normal rotational pattern that you planned for that category.

For example, you have planned Category X for a 19 hour turnover. While editing the Tuesday log, you see a problem in the Category X slot at 11am. You search Category X to find another song to drop into the slot. But since every song in Category X has been already scheduled somewhere else in this Tuesday playlist, the best that can be achieved is a song that is also scheduled within 9 hours of the 11am slot.

This does not happen when scheduling the Music 1 Way. When it can't schedule a Category X song at 11am, it stops and shows you the problem, the choices it has and the formatting rules preventing each one from scheduling in the slots. You make a decision. The song you select for the slot will be one that would normally have been scheduled in a close-by hour. Maybe the song you choose would've come up in the noon or 1 pm hour. So, if you select that one, it will get an 18 or 17-hour turnover this time, but the next time it comes up will then be 20 or 21 hours later. This minor fluctuation is much more acceptable than the 8 or 9 hour fluctuation that comes with 'after-the-run' playlist editing.

Benefit #3 - Reliable, Consistent Spin Counts
Since the beginning, the most common complaint music directors have had with their scheduler is this: "Some of the songs in the category get way more spins each month than what I planned for. And other songs in the category don't get scheduled enough."

With Music 1, every song in every category gets the same number of spins as all the others in that category. The only exceptions are songs that are hour-restricted. If you lock a song out of the morning drive hours, it will have about 20% fewer spins each week/month than the others in the category, but that's what you want. Outside of morning drive, that song will have exactly the same about of play as all the others. Music 1 simply does not 'over-schedule' some songs and 'under-schedule' others.

Benefit #4 - Costs Less
M1 generally has lower rates than the other top music schedulers.

Disadvantage of Switching To Music 1
It takes about an hour and a half to learn the basics of M1. Its look, feel and functionality are different from old style schedulers. A switch to Music 1 means a person has to look at the task of music scheduling in a different way and change a few old habits. Once they are in the comfort zone with a software, some people really hate the idea of having to learn something new, no matter how low the learning curve nor how many the potential benefits.