TRAC’s Guide to Listings Reporting

As we program stations, consult with pledge producers, coordinate accurate audience measurement for stations, and provide services for producers, TRAC supports all of our clients in their goals of accurate communications about their broadcast schedules. In service to our clients specifically, and the public television system overall, TRAC Media Services offers the following outline from which the stations can provide data to ROVI in hopes of reducing errors and inaccuracies.

Schedules

For ProTrack users, the most optimal format is the Daily Listings II Report. This is because it provides an accurate start time for each program as well as the complete title. PDF grids from ProTrack have issues with title truncation as well as ambiguous durations for core pledge programming. Below are instructions for producing the ProTrack Daily Listings II Report:

1. In ProTrack, click on “Reports” in the top navigation bar2. Click on “Program Reports” in the drop down menu3. Click on “Daily Program Listings” in the next drop down menu4. Select “Daily Program Listings II” in the last drop down menu, which opens up a

dialog box5. For channel, select “Y” and hit enter6. Select the channel you want to pull the listings for by hitting the space bar next

to the channel designation and then click “ok”7. Enter the date range by either typing in the dates or selecting them through the

calendar function 8. Uncheck the “Include descriptions” box9. Check the “Format Time as 01:00 PM” box10. For the output section, select “Text” or “DOCX” depending on your preference

(you can also select “PDF” if you do not have any local program descriptions to add (see #12)

11. Click “ok” to run the report12. For any local shows, paste in show descriptions under the appropriate title

(alternately, you can check “include descriptions” to do this automatically, but

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we recommend NOT including national show descriptions so those would need to be removed)

13. Save the report as needed14. Pull the report as a *.doc file with no truncated titles. 15. Generate an updated version each time you send an in-body edit to ROVI.

Example: Daily Program Listings II

TRAC Media Services - Keith York - keith@tracmedia.com - (520) 545-0909

Example: Excel Grid

If your station does not use ProTrack, a non-PDF grid will also work. Be sure that titles are not truncated and program lengths (including pledge breaks) are easy to understand.

Email Edits

In each email please provide the following for the ROVI editors:

FCC call letters for your main flagship station The brand name for subchannels (channel position is helpful too) Date & time of edit Program title in full and title(s) being replaced For every edit sent, please send an updated schedule attachment so editors do

not have to go back and find the original schedule sent weeks prior Only provide descriptions for original broadcast of local programming Send in a timely manner

TRAC Media Services - Keith York - keith@tracmedia.com - (520) 545-0909

Keep CC lists short or put them in the BCC field

Local Programming

While regional/national productions are likely to be preloaded into ROVI’s database, be sure to include descriptions of NEW local programs in the body of an email.

Errors in Your Listings

When you notice errors in your listings within 2 weeks prior to the airdate, please email your ROVI editor and CC Sai Murthy at Sai.Murthy@rovicorp.com.

While edits should be fixed within 48-72 hours from your request, if they are not addressed, we suggest emailing Sai Murthy privately to let her know.

Other Resources

While this is not all encompassing, we do encourage stations to continue to engage with ROVI to improve, for their station and public television in general, listings accuracy. Sai Murthy at ROVI has asked to be put on all the distribution lists that go to ROVI. Her contact information is Sai.Murthy@rovicorp.com.

We believe assets at your disposal include staff at PBS, APT and NETA as well as one another through forums such as TrafficChat and ProgrammersChat.

Launching a new Subchannel

As you consider launching a new digital subchannel to deliver programming to your community, remember to notify ROVI so they add the channel to their database and workflow(s). New channels should be reported to tgsupport@rovicorp.com.

When you are ready to inform ROVI of your new channel, be sure to inform them of the following items:

FCC Call Letters Channel Long Name Five Character Display Name Virtual Channel Number City State Time Zone Station Affiliate Primary Language and Schedule Contact Information (at station)

TRAC Media Services - Keith York - keith@tracmedia.com - (520) 545-0909

Acknowledgments

TRAC would like to thank the Public Television Programmers Association (PTPA), our liaisons at ROVI, Nancy Southgate (Arizona PBS), Lili Bell (Arizona Public Media) and Irene Fink (WXXI) for their assistance in developing this document.

TRAC Media Services - Keith York - keith@tracmedia.com - (520) 545-0909