SoundExchange Reporting Blog

Another calendar quarter has come and gone, which means that another round of SoundExchange reporting has also come and gone! Last week, after months of hard work by many people – mainly YOU people at the stations -  Public Interactive delivered the Q3 2010 reports to SoundExchange. Here’s the 411 on this round of reports:

• Stations reporting: 290
• Content streams reported on: 459
• Total Music Aggregate Tuning Hours (MATH) covered by the reports: 11,826,951

Once again, you people gave us lots and lots of data! Thanks to all who did.

For those who didn’t and who should, well, you really need to start; by not reporting you are putting your station at risk of being found in violation of copyright laws.

That would be bad. Don’t let it happen to you.

If you haven’t been reporting then there’s no better time to start than with the next round of reports!

Speaking of, the deadline for submitting your SoundExchange reporting data for those Q4 2010 reports (covering October 1 – December 31) is Friday, January 7, 2011.

As always, I urge, beg and plead with all of you to get us your data as soon as your reporting weeks are over. Don’t wait until the reporting deadline! Each quarter there are stations that wait until the last minute to submit their data, only to find their stream host can no longer produce the required streaming logs, or who don’t have enough time to fill in their playlist logs or some such problem which then prevents us from generating a report for that station. The best way to avoid such problems is to submit your data as soon as possible!

No matter when (or how) you submit your data, contact me as soon as you do, so I can verify that we have what we need.

Finally, I’ll be traveling to Las Vegas this week to speak at the Western States Public Radio conference about (what else?) SoundExchange reporting. I’ll speaking at 1:45 on Friday for about 10 minutes, just after lunch. If you’re going, please be sure to sit in on my session and say hello!

OK, enough with the pleading. Thanks again for all the hard work, folks!

Before getting into the main point of this post, allow me to remind all that the deadline for submitting your Q3 SoundExchange reporting data is this Friday, October 8, 2010. Sad, but true.

If you have already submitted data but haven’t checked with me yet, to ensure we have everything we need, please do so now!

If you haven’t yet submitted your Q3 SoundExchange data, then please, also, by all means, do so now!

Enough with the unpleasantries. I’m really writing here to let everyone know that Public Interactive has tweaked the statuses of your SoundExchange reports in Composer Basic and Pro. Previously, they were a bit confusing, so we’ve tried to  make them a little more self-explanatory. Here’s how they work now:

Incomplete – Means we haven’t received either playlist files and/or streaming logs from you.

Pending – Means we’ve received both playlists and streaming logs from you, but they haven’t been preprocessed. Before the final reports are generated, files get preprocessed to ensure they match our formatting and have the appropriate data fields. Playlist files get automatically preprocessed shortly after upload; streaming logs, on the other hand, get processed manually by PI staff, and so may take some time before they are preprocessed.

Ready – Means we have both playlists and streaming logs and that they’ve been preprocessed successfully to ensure we have enough data to generate a report; in other words, we have data from you and based on that we can generate a report.

Complete – The final report for SoundExchange has been generated.

Basically, this all means that reporting should work like this:

1. You upload your playlists and streaming logs to Public Interactive; your report status goes from Incomplete to Pending

2. PI successfully preprocesses your files, and your status goes from Pending to Ready.

3. Just before final submission to SoundExchange, PI generates the actual reports, and your status goes from Ready to Complete.

There you have it. Hopefully, this is somewhat less confusing than it was. If not, as always, contact me and I’ll try to clear it up…!

Have you noticed a chill in the air? It could be because Fall has arrived – or because, like Halloween, the Q3 data submission deadline is almost upon us!

Boo!

That deadline again, in case you don’t recall, is a little over a week away – Friday, October 8, 2010. It covers the period July 1 – September 30, 2010. All the gory details are here.

Couple of other juicy reporting tidbits:

1. We’ve added some new syndicated shows to the list of those providing us with playlist data. Be sure to keep an eye on the list of such shows here and make sure that your program guide in Composer Basic or Pro properly reflects when you streamed these syndicated shows during your reporting weeks.

2. While we’re on the topic of syndicated shows, I’m sure everyone knows of the name change for Speaking of Faith to Being. Many folks have already asked what this means for SoundExchange reporting and whether stations need to do anything on their end to ensure those playlists continue to get integrated into their reports. The answer is stations don’t need to do anything! PI will change the name of the show in Composer Basic and Pro to reflect the change.

3. PI has been in discussions with WFMT about obtaining playlists for their syndicated offerings (e.g., the Beethoven Satellite Network, the Jazz Satellite Network, etc.). They assured us they will be providing the data to PI in the near future. I’ll let everyone know when that’s the case – or if, for some reason, they don’t, in which case stations would need to get the data directly from WFMT themselves.

We’re also working with our buddies at PRX, to get playlists for their offerings.

4. Some of you may have noticed that we’ve added a new check to detect song overlaps in playlist files (i.e., songs that are identified as having been played at the same time).

If you upload a playlist file with song overlaps, a warning explaining this will be written to the error file, which you can view by clicking on the View link in the Error File column on the Upload Playlists/Streaming Logs screen.

You can see which songs overlap by opening the processed file, which you can review by clicking on the View link in the Processed File column on the same screen. Search for Song overlap in this file and you’ll the instances of overlap.

Song overlaps only lead to a warning, not an error, meaning they won’t prevent us from generating a report for you. It does mean, however, that some over counting of listening will occur due to the overlap.

Why should anyone care about over counting? Because over counting leads to inflated Music Aggregate Tuning Hours which can lead to higher royalty payments for the entire system. Not good.

Occasional overlaps of a few seconds here and there are no big deal, although, ideally, no overlapping is what everyone should be striving for. If your overlaps are more than a few seconds – or are something persistent your file – please take the time to review and fix them as best you can. It’s for the common good. Honest.

OK, that’s more than enough for now. Good luck, and thanks for all the hard work, everyone!

P.S. It was great to meet so many of you at this past weekend’s Public Radio Programming Directors conference in Denver! Next conference up for me: the Western States Public Radio conference in Las Vegas.

Just want to remind everyone of two important SoundExchange-related events that are coming up soon:

1. We’ll be conducting a webinar this coming Thursday, September 16, 2010 from 2:00-3:00 EDT for producers of syndicated programming streamed by stations covered under the CPB-SoundExchange agreement. Anybody is welcome to attend, but we’ll be discussing a reporting process that’s specific to those folks. Here’s the description and registration information:

If you produce a syndicated show streamed by public radio stations, please join us to learn how to submit data on the music you stream to Public Interactive (PI, a division of NPR) for use in the generation of quarterly reports to SoundExchange (SX). This webinar will discuss the terms of the recent CPB-SX webcasting performance agreement and what syndicated show producers need to do to ensure that stations streaming their shows are in compliance with the terms of this agreement. We’ll discuss the required reporting data, as well the format and method in which the data should be reported to PI. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session.

Title:         SoundExchange Reporting for Syndicated Show Producers
Date:        Thursday, September 16, 2010
Time:        2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

Reserve your seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/796174776

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

2. Q3 2010, believe it or not, will soon be over which means, if you haven’t already, please get your Q3 reporting data (covering July 1- September 30, 2010) to Public Interactive as soon as possible. We’ve set a deadline of Friday, October 8 to submit your Q3 data to us but please please pretty please do not wait until the last minute to submit your data! It leaves little to no time to correct errors and deal with unforeseen problems (e.g., missing streaming logs).

Anyway, as always, the basics of reporting are detailed here.

Onward!

I just booked my flight and hotel for the Public Radio Program Directors annual conference in Denver next month. I was in Cleveland for last year’s conference which I enjoyed quite a bit; I guess Arthur Cohen decided to take the PRPD’s talents to the Mile High City this year.

I’m looking forward to this year’s event, to seeing and meeting lots of you folks responsible for your station’s SoundExchange reporting and to seeing Denver for the first time.

While there won’t be a SoundExchange-specific session this time around, I will be there to answer whatever SX-related questions you have. If you don’t see me milling about the sessions, come look for me at the Public Interactive booth, which will  be manned by our own Joe Orlando and Suzanne Brendle. Be sure to come by and say hello!

While I have you on the line, don’t forget that the data submission deadline for your Q3 SoundExchange reporting data (covering July 1 – September 30) is Friday, October 8, 2010. Please be sure to submit your data to us as soon as your reporting weeks are over and contact me to let me know you have uploaded your data.

The deadline for submitting your Q2 SoundExchange reporting data to Public Interactive has come and gone! Thanks to the many of you who got us your data on time and in the proper format and such!

For you stragglers, we can still try to squeeze you in, but you’d have to get us your data ASAP, and even then there are no promises, though we will do our best. Contact me if you do slip your data under my door in the next couple of days to let me know.

In the meantime, we’ve just posted a good reminder on the main Public Interactive blog about how to properly enter syndicated programming into your schedule grid, so that we can  integrate any playlists we get for your syndicated programs into your SoundExchange reports. Please take a few minutes to read and make sure your syndicated programs are entered properly into your schedule grid(s) in Composer Pro or Basic.

Anyway, thanks again to you stations that submitted Q2 data. Now, all we have to do is process it all…

It’s official: Q2 2010 is now over – which means, if you haven’t already, it is time to submit your SoundExchange reporting data to Public Interactive.

As you should know by now, the due date to get us your data is Friday, July 9, 2010.  It’s like the night before the big school project is due: there’s no more putting it off.

The basic reporting steps are detailed here.

Two important reminders for everyone:

1. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE – even you PI streaming and Composer Pro clients – that is reporting on a 14-day sample (rather than the whole quarter) MUST set your reporting dates in Composer Pro or Composer Basic!!!

Emailing your reporting dates to me or otherwise noting them in filenames or files is not adequate! If you don’t set your dates in Composer Basic or Pro then we will tell SoundExchange that you have chosen to report on the whole quarter. If you only give us two weeks worth of compliant reporting data, but SoundExchange thinks you are reporting on the whole quarter, that means your reports are understating the amount of music you streamed. Not good.

To specify your reporting dates in Composer Basic or Pro, navigate to the Select Report Dates screen using the global What do you want to do? navigation drop down at the top of each screen, then enter the two start dates of your chosen reporting weeks; not the start and end date of your two weeks, but the start dates of each week. We do it this way because stations are free to report on non-consecutive weeks.

If you have more than one content stream to report on, be sure to set these dates for each of your content streams, navigating between them using the drop-down toggle at the upper right hand corner of the screen.

2. If you have entered, uploaded or otherwise submitted your Q2 data to us and you have not yet verified with me that we have what we need, contact me now! Do not assume that no news is good news. It isn’t. Is it ever?

That is all. Thanks, everyone!

It’s probably not something worth blowing a vuvuzela over but, for better or worse, the deadline for submitting your station’s Q2 2010 SoundExchange reporting data to Public Interactive is quickly approaching: Friday July 9, 2010.

For those who are new to this process, or for those who don’t have it down pat yet, here are the basic SoundExchange reporting steps for this quarter:

1. Choose your 14-day reporting period for Q2 2010, which must be two 7-day-consecutive periods completely contained between April 1 – June 30
2. Create properly formatted playlist logs or, for Composer Pro clients, enter playlists with required reporting data directly into Composer Pro
3. Obtain streaming access logs from your stream host for your chosen reporting period (not required for PI streaming clients)
4. Upload playlist and streaming log files to Public Interactive using Composer Basic or Composer Pro
5. Update/enter the guide information for each of your content streams in Composer Basic or Composer Pro, so that we can integrate playlists for those syndicated shows that you stream
6. Specify the start dates of your two chosen reporting weeks using Composer Basic/Pro
7. Contact me to let me know you’ve uploaded your data, updated your guide(s) and specified your reporting dates
8. Have a beverage of your choosing to celebrate!

OK, let’s get this set of reports over with ASAP so we can all enjoy the summer!

As we quickly approach the next SoundExchange reporting deadline, here at Public Interactive we’ve made some tweaks to the SoundExchange Dashboard portion of Composer Basic and Composer Pro to (hopefully) make the reporting process a little bit easier.

Having now gone through two quarters of reporting with the Dashboard in place, it was clear that one of the biggest areas of confusion for stations has been how to specify their two chosen reporting weeks each quarter. Many folks didn’t know how to do this, as the screen used for it was hard to find. We’ve now made some changes in attempt to make it easier to complete this important step in the reporting process.

An aside, this step is particularly important because, if your station provides two weeks worth of reporting data but doesn’t specify which weeks in the quarter they pertain to, then SoundExchange will assume the data is not a sample but a census (that is a complete accounting) of all the recordings you streamed during the quarter. This effectively means you have under-reported and could, in theory, affect royalty payments to artists and key metrics used as benchmarks in the agreement between the CPB and SoundExchange (e.g. Music Aggregate Tuning Hours).

So, it’s very important you set these dates in the tool.

To try and make a little more obvious as to how and where to do so, we’ve made the following changes to the SoundExchange Dashboard:

1. The Select Report Dates screen can now be accessed from the global What do you want to do? navigation at the top of each page, under SoundExchange Dashboard:

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2. The View Reports screen now displays the chosen reporting weeks for each of your content streams for the current reporting quarter, which are linked to the Select Report Dates screen:

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3. The chosen reporting period for the current quarter is now also displayed on the Upload Playlists/Streaming Logs screen, and a link to the Select Report Dates screen is provided:

the

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4. We’ve removed the previous functionality on the Upload Playlists/Streaming Logs screen that required you to specify the start and end dates for each individual playlist or streaming log file you uploaded to us. This was only causing confusion for users and these dates are now deduced from the files themselves.

5. If you have more than one content stream (e.g., an HD2 channel), you must specify reporting weeks for each one separately. You can now navigate between the Select Report Dates screens for each of your content streams by using the drop-down toggle we’ve added to the upper right hand corner of that screen (like you were already able to do on the upload logs and guide management screens):

Click to enlarge

Important reminder: when specifying your two chosen reporting weeks in Composer Basic or Pro, you specify the start dates of each week, rather than the start and end dates of your reporting period. We do it this way because stations are free to choose two non-consecutive reporting weeks.

OK, if you haven’t already, please go forth, gather and submit your Q2 reporting data!

Slowly but surely, Q2 2010 SoundExchange reporting data is starting to dribble in to us here at Public Interactive. Thanks to you early birds for getting us your data already!

For the rest of you, please please PLEASE don’t wait until the deadline to get us your Q2 data. I encourage you to submit your reporting data as soon as your reporting weeks are over! If you wait until the last minute, problems can arise (not to mention other important business like, say, pledge drives). The earlier you get us your data, the more time we have to work together to fix any data problems and ensure that PI can generate and submit reports on your station’s behalf.

Q2 2010 SoundExchange Reporting Steps:

1. Choose your 14-day reporting period, which must be two 7-day-consecutive periods completely contained between  April 1 – June 30
2. Create properly formatted playlist logs and obtain streaming access logs from your stream host for your chosen reporting period
3. Submit playlist and streaming log files to Public Interactive using Composer Basic or Composer Pro
4. Update/enter the guide (schedule) information for each of your content streams in Composer Basic or Composer Pro, so that we can integrate playlists for those syndicated shows that you stream
5. Specify the start dates of your two chosen reporting weeks using Composer Basic/Pro
6. Contact me to let me know you’ve uploaded your data, updated your guide(s) and specified your reporting dates
7. Complete all of these steps by Friday, July 9, 2010
8. Rinse, lather, repeat in Q3…

Of course, there are some exceptions to the above. For example, some stations (they know who they are) must report for the entire quarter. Also, Composer Pro clients that enter playlist data using that tool don’t need to upload playlist files, and PI streaming clients don’t need to upload streaming logs, etc. But, otherwise, them’s the rules.

Oh yes, if you produce a syndicated program and are not yet providing us with playlists, please review this page on what data we need from you, then contact me so we can start collecting your show’s data.