Saving you money and giving you more power, now that is worth a look.

The world or radio has changed over the last few years, almost beyond recognition. Local radio stations are co-locating, branded radio products are networking across the UK and stations are sharing more and more content in a drive to provide services and reduce costs.

It is clear therefore that in order to achieve the best possible outcome, radio stations turn to technology providers with a similar mind set, that are able to provide software and hardware solutions that are not only cost effective but afford the broadcaster the power and functionality to broadcast the way they want to.

Working closely with ENCO Inc in the USA, Special Media Projects have been able to re-create the ENCO Software packages for radio stations in the UK. Making the purchasing options more clear and the software provision more powerful while reducing the cost of the software allowing stations to more easily manage their budgets.

ENCO Software, which includes the world renowned DAD and Presenter is, unlike offerings from other major providers, a buy out package. You own the software which means, it will continue to work for you without any monthly license, fee or additional play out tax. PRS charge you to play music, we don’t. Offered with all ENCO Software packages is optional monthly support, giving you piece of mind and the ability to upgrade your software whenever new versions are released. Some software providers for the radio industry insist that you pay for updates and new versions… while under support with ENCO, you get every new update, every new version and all fixes as part of your monthly plan. But as we said only a moment ago, if you are happy with your current version and the features offered, stick with it and pay not a penny more.

An average local radio station should expect to pay in the region of £4500 for all of the on-air software required. This would include 2 playout workstations, administration applications, DAD, Presenter, scheduling, file management and backup software. Compared to others, this is a huge saving, even without considering the cost of hardware, which brings us on to another point.

ENCO will run on your existing hardware, the hardware you already own with your existing playout system. There is no need to purchase alternate soundcards, you don’t need to upgrade your workstations. What you will get is a lot more control over your broadcast, the ability to play split commercials and jingles right out of the box, ideal for networking or sending alternate audio to different transmission locations. You get metadata and now playing information from the word go and even, a built in scheduling system that uses your audio library, so everything can be done in one place.

Make the most of your station, make your budgets stretch further, with ENCO from Special media Projects your future is secure.

Special Media Projects made it a Special Christmas for one Young Carer, Perry from Lewisham. Although the small prize, an Android Slate wasn’t a life changing gift, it meant a lot to Perry, who has the day to day adult responsibility of caring for his Mum.

here is what Perry has to say about being a Young Carer…

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Running a small scale radio station is expensive, whether its a local commerical, community or even an internet based broadcast, to get things right and sounding great, broadcasters and radio makers must invest in their technology and infrastructure. Those that are serious about radio do not skimp on software and technology, prefering to choose professional applications over those designed for home, “bedroom DJ” use.

What broadcasters and radio station operators seem to often forget however is that great radio is not just about your software provision, its not just about your choice of playout software. Much of what you do is based in the back end of the broadcast and starts with scheduling.

We have discussed already the virtues of “shuffle scheduling” using packages such as Powergold but what if, the station you are operating can not afford the sky high prices of RCS Selector, or if you don’t need the features offered by Powergold? Well there are a couple of buy out options that “do the job” Natural Music is one option and Music1 is another, both are buy out, both will squirt logs into your playout system (well they will into ENCO at least) but they both have draw backs, the most noticeable is that they are not integrated.

Integrated scheduling is by far the most effective method of managing your on-air sound. Integrated scheulers build your music logs, based on exactly what is in your audio library. There is no need to add information into multiple locations, as with ENsemble from ENCO, what you add to your DAD or Prsenter system, is automatically added into ENsemble for immediate scheduling.

ENsemble scheduling doesn’t cost as much as you would think either, with all of the tools and power, right in your playout system, there is no need for the smaller broadcaster to waste inordinate amounts of money any longer on external scheduling packages such as Selector, which do no more than pick songs from a database anyway. ENsemble is packaged with DAD, ready to go. Its a buy-out application so you have no on-going costs. you can manage your budget and do what is important to keep you station alive… make money.

As with all ENCO software, we believe your package, playout and studio back end, should be an asset to your station, giving to you every day and NOT a drain on your resources, constantly draining your pockets.

ENsemble, is scheduling made easy.  Find out more by clicking here

Radio programmers spend hours each day programming their scheduling software to produce what they conceive as the perfect music schedule for their listener, endlessly adjusting categories, artist codes, moods, tempo’s and tweaking the rotation and rules to create a flow that will sound the same, all day every day so the radio station is always the same, the same “feel” irrespective of what time of day you tune in.

This however is really a very old method of scheduling radio, things have changed. Peoples expectations have altered and they expect, nay, demand more variety. This is due, in no uncertain terms to MP3 players, random type playlists and online services like www.grooveshark.com and www.spotify.com where by the user selects their favorite album and artist and the software selects tracks from within that search and similar music based on the style of tracks chosen.

Listening trends today have changed drastically, variety is in demand and a wide variety at that. It used to be that radio stations would play only “tried and tested” music, which is why every commercial station and local broadcaster sounded the same, the same songs, over and over again, because research stated that these particular songs worked well with the target audience, forgetting that while repetition works for advertising, it does not work for songs.

In cometh “shuffle scheduling”, something I have been doing for several years. Not because I am a lazy programmer but because it actually works, and works well. By using this “shuffle scheduling” technique your scheduling software produces a music log that is much more natural, or at least what has become natural for most listeners. It is, infact a very simple concept that works like this:

1.
Set your scheduler, whether thats Powergold, Selector, Music Master, Natural Music Ensemble or whatever to IGNORE all rules, apart from same song separation and artist separation.

2.
You need only 3 categories of songs which are:

A-List (these are the high rotation new songs, about 13 – 17 in total)
Core (this makes up the bulk of your playlist)
Recurrent (songs that used to be on the A-list with a lower rotation)

Plot these categories into your clock with something like the following percentage:

A-List 20%
Core 70%
Recurrent 10%

Shuffle scheduling produces a very comfortable sounding, natural playlist. It doesn’t matter to Joe Public whether they hear two female artists playing next to each other, or whether a song ends on a low or slow and goes into a high or fast, their iPod doesn’t discern these differences so what does it matter if their favorite radio station doesn’t.

Shuffle scheduling sounds great, not only that but it makes the task of scheduling a lot easier and faster, especially when using intelligent software like Powergold. There is no need to toil over playlists for hours on end, when with shuffle scheduling techniques you can create a weeks worth of music in minutes. Spend the rest of your time being creative and let your music do the work.

Winner of the NAB “COOL STUFF” Award

Have you ever felt constrained by where you can report from and how much gear you had to take with you? Have you ever wanted to control your DAD system from the road, literally? ENCO presents iDAD and interchange, a pair of tools that free those bonds and enable your system like never before. Now you can make the world your studio.

iDAD is a mobile application for the ENCO DAD and Presenter audio automation studio systems designed initially for the wildly popular iPhone, iPod Touch and brand new iPad tablet device from Apple. iDAD allows your news reporters and announcers to record, label and then send audio from the mobile device directly to their DAD or Presenter automation systems for timely playback using interchange.

iDAD also features a remote control function which allows easy control of a DAD or Presenter system from the mobile device using a simple array of buttons that represent various user definable DAD Command Language (DCL) based functions.

Most DAD networks are well isolated from the internet, and typically for good reason. That’s why we created interchange, the device that provides a safe and secure link from the outside world (iDevices, remote PC’s, etc.) to your DAD network. It is a simple 1RU rack mounted

network appliance with three connectors (power, two network ports). The browser based configurator allows you to easily configure your interchange.

interchange also provides the framework for a number of upcoming “remote oriented” features & products that we’re working on, plus you can run PADapult and a number of additional DAD utilities on the unit allowing you to have a powerful ‘utility players’ on your DAD team. Your investment in interchange will continue to pay divi

dends with new field upgradable optional features in interchange that can be easily added to your system as they become available.

You can have as many of the no charge iDAD apps as you wish (available now from the iTunes App Store), so you can outfit your entire staff if you’d like. You control the access and security though the interchange.

It’s the perfect combination of power, convenience, access and security that lets you take show on the road to anywhere. With iDAD and interchange, the World Is Your Studio.

In order to meet the needs of new and existing community radio stations, Special Media Projects are launching a new packaged range of broadcast software and hardware. Simple to use, easy to install and extremely powerful. The new packages, based on the award winning ENCO DAD and ENCO Presenter software are game changers for community radio – at a great price too!

Professional software for people serious about quality broadcasts.

The exclusive pricing is available to Community, Hospital, Education and small scale internet broadcasters.

See our community radio page at www.specialmediaprojects.co.uk for further information.

With 2012 in full swing, now is a great time to re evaluate your software provision, is it performing for you in the way it should? That is to say, is your current software giving you all of the features you need and want, while remaining cost effective? Is your software costing you a fortune each month?

If you, like we understand most of the broadcast industry to be, are paying an extortionate fee for playout software and scheduling each month, now is the time to look at your spending and whether it is a necessary expense you need in a recession.

2012 is set to be a year of recovery, so why not expedite that recovery more quickly, lining your pockets with silver, rather than your suppliers.

Our software solutions lead the world in terms of features and power, while remaining cost effective and affordable. We do not charge a mandatory monthly fee, or tax on playout, we keep our costs low and our features high, ensuring that you have the most powerful playout solution on the market today.

For a free evaluation on your broadcast playout, talk to us today. We are here for you, to save you money and help make your business the most successful it can be.

Special Media Projects LLP are proud to annonce being selected as media partner and provider for the 10th year running for the Young Carers Festvial, the largest gathering of Young Carers in the world. Special Media Projects LLP in partnership with Express FM Limited provide the festival radio station, YCFM.

The festival began in 1999 when Jenny Frank (MBE) from the Childrens Society aproached Pete Cooper at YMCA Fairthorn Manor for a venue to hold a meeting for some young carers from all over the country. Pete suggested that perhaps Fairthorn Manor could accomodate 600 young people for a whole weekend, giving them activities to take part in, a time to discuss their needs as young carers and a chance to meet new friends who shared similar experiences to them.

The first year was an amazing success, each of the young people not only having a great time, but it was a rare (at the time) opportunity to talk openly about the needs each of the young carers and the problems they face in their day to day lifes. It was at the Young Carers Festival for example, it was first picked up that many of those that attend (and of course those that don’t) wanted to raise awareness in schools. For a young carer, school work can sometimes be very difficult to complete on time and teachers, unaware of the situation could not accomodate the need for felxibility or even understand why homework was late. It was also realised that young carers do need to be able to talk to doctors about loved ones problems and not kept in the dark… to most, these sound like mundane, simple things to worry about, but for a young person, caring for loved ones, making dinner for siblings, carrying out the day to day household chores, while coping with a full day at school and other responsibilities, they are big, important changes to be made that really can lighten the pressure.

Through the Young Carers Festival, it is not only the profile of Young Carers in schools that has been heightened. The message about Young Carers and their needs has been taken directly into the Houses Of Parliament, into the heart of the UK government its self. As part of each festival, MP’s and politicians, from the Childrens Minister to the Education Secretary get involved with our own version of question time. This gives them the opportunity to get to know some of the UK’s young carers and more importantly, for the Young Carers to tell those in power what they need to make their lifes better. Young Carers of all ages and backgrounds are given the chance to ask some very probing questions about care policy and what the current government is planning to do to to help.

Of course, the weekend is not all about politics, it is mostly about having a weekend of absolute fun, a weekend where problems can be laid aside, the stress of every day life aleviated for a short time. It’s a weekend where new friendships are made, stories shared and social interations encountered. The festival is so important in the development of these young people’s lifes, its often the only weekend they get away from responsibility that would cripple most adults.

Each of the young carers that attends the weekend is different and the festival does its best to cater to the needs, wishes and tastes of everyone. From aporting activities, sailing, kayacking, rock climbing, team sports, team tactical activity, crafts, sports tournaments, live bands on stage, a silent disco, a massive outdoor party, fire works displays and YCFM, the festivals very own radio station… there really is so much to do.

For the whole weekend, each of the Young Carers arrive and live with their care group or project in a gigantic tented village. Some bring their own tents, while others choose to stay in under canvas provided by the YMCA and set-up by volenteers. No cooking is required as the on-site catering team cook over 12000 meals, there is a 24hr coffee shop serving hot drinks and snacks and an army of helpers work 24/7 to ensure the emphasis is on having fun and not worrying about a single thing. The atendees are encouraged to interact outside of their own group, to meet other young people from all over the UK, to make friends, share stories and to take part in as much of what is on offer as possible… of course, if a someone just wants to relax in the beautiful countryside and read a book, thats fine too.

So here we are, 13 years on and the festival gets bigger every year. Young people, now too old to attend the festival, come back to help as volunteers, simply because it is the place that they remember having the time of their lifes and want to share that with other young people in similar situations to their own. It is so hard to describe the atmosphere, no matter what the weather… it is nothing short of magical. From the amazing young people, the abundance of energy, the magic of seeing a young person change for the better in 3 short days.

“When you drive down that long winding tree lined drive to Fairthorn Manor, you can feel happiness in the air, a sense of adventure, fun and magic”, is how one person described arriving at the festival, but words alone do not express how worthwhile, how valuable it is to the young people that come back year after year. The festival is loved, the weekend is cherished and it is, in our minds and hearts, the most important date in our diary every June.

The festival organisers are always looking for sponsorship and we are always looking for great prizes to give away each year. If you can help, we would love to hear from you.