Reporting

In this chapter, you will learn how to use the reporting part of mAirListDB to create on air logs and playback statistics, and how to export them for royalty reporting to collecting societies.

The reporting part of mAirListDB can be found on the Reports tab in the database application.

How Logging Works

Whenever an item from the database is played in mAirList, the playback is recorded in the internal logging tables of the database. For each playback, mAirList stores:

• the start time,
• the station and the studio it was played in,
• the item (database ID),
• the actual playback duration (recorded when the item stops), and
• the number of listeners at the start and at the end of the playback, as reported by the encoder (if configured).

All reports are generated from these tables. Only items that belong to the database are logged - files that were loaded directly from the hard disk are not included.

Logging can be controlled with the following options on the Options page of the database connection properties (see Database Setup):

• Disable internal logging: Turns off logging completely. Do not enable this option if you plan to use reporting.
• Disable internal logging when OFF AIR: Only log items while the instance is in ON AIR mode. This should be enabled for most installations, so that pre-listening or test playback in a production studio does not show up in the reports.

Old log data can be removed with the Clean up playback history task on the Maintenance page.

Generating a Report

The Reports tab consists of two parts: The Settings panel on the left-hand side, where you choose the report type, period and filters, and the Results list on the right-hand side.

To generate a report:

1. Select the Report type (see Report Types below).
2. Select the Reporting period, or adjust the First day and Last day manually (see Reporting Period below).
3. Optionally, set one or more filters.
4. Click Generate Report.

The results are displayed in the list on the right-hand side. Click a column header to sort the list by that column.

Report Types

The following report types are available:

• On Air Log: A list of all individual playbacks in chronological order, with the following columns: Time, ID, Title, Artist, Type, Duration (the actual playback duration), Studio, Listeners (Start) and Listeners (Stop).
• Item Statistics: One row per item, sorted by number of playbacks, with the columns ID, Title, Artist, Type, Item Duration (the duration of the item itself), Count (number of playbacks) and Duration (total playback duration of all playbacks).
• Artist Statistics: One row per artist, with the columns Artist, Count (number of playbacks), Item Count (number of different items played), Duration (total playback duration) and %.
• Item Type Statistics: The same as Artist Statistics, but with one row per item type (Music, Jingle, etc.).

The % column shows the share of the total playback duration relative to the length of the reporting period. For example, if items of type Music were played for a total of 18 hours on a single day, the column shows 75.00. The column is only populated when both a first and a last day are set.

Reporting Period

The Reporting period drop-down list provides a number of predefined periods: Today, Yesterday, This week, Last week, This month, Last month, This year, Last year and Overall.

Selecting a period fills in the First day and Last day fields accordingly. The weeks start with the first day of week configured for the database. You can adjust both dates manually after selecting a predefined period. Both days are included in the report.

Uncheck the checkbox in the First day or Last day field in order to leave the period open on that side. The Overall period unchecks both fields, i.e. the report covers the entire log.

Filters

You can narrow down the report with the following filters. Filters left empty are ignored; all other filters are combined, i.e. a playback must match all of them in order to be included.

• Filter by item: Click the field to open the item selection dialog, and select a single item from the library. Click the button at the right-hand side of the field to remove the filter.
• Filter by item type: Only include items of the selected type.
• Filter by artist: Only include items by the specified artist. The artist name must match exactly.

Advertising Campaign Reports

You can also create a report for an advertising campaign directly from the Advertising tab: Select a campaign and click the Report button in the toolbar. mAirList switches to the Reports tab and generates an On Air Log for the campaign’s item, covering the run time of the campaign. See Advertising Scheduling for more information on campaigns.

Exporting a Report

To save the current report to a file, click the Save as… button below the results list. In the Save As dialog, choose the file format from the file type drop-down list. Only the formats suitable for the current report type are listed. mAirList remembers the last selected format for each report type.

Some formats require additional information, such as the name of your station or the attributes that hold additional metadata like composer or ISRC. In this case, a dialog appears after you selected the file name, where you can edit these export parameters:

• Parameters ending in Attribute contain the name of an item attribute (see Library). The value of this attribute is read from each item and written into the respective field of the export file. The defaults are common attribute names; change them to match the attribute names you use in your library. If you do not maintain a particular attribute, the field is left empty in the export.
• All other parameters contain a fixed value, e.g. your station ID or name as assigned by the collecting society.

The export parameters are saved in the database configuration of the current station, so you only need to enter them once, and they are shared by all computers connected to the database.

Export Formats

The following export formats are available:

The CSV file export writes one line per row of the report, using the columns shown for the selected report type, separated by commas.

The export parameters of the other formats are listed below.

CREDIDAM/UCMR-ADA

ComposerAttribute, NumArtistsAttribute, AlbumAttribute, LabelAttribute, PublisherAttribute, CountryAttribute, YearAttribute.

GEMAGVLv4

• Reporter: The reporter ID assigned by GEMA (SNDMELD).
• Station: The station ID assigned by GEMA (SENDER).
• ComposerAttribute, LabelCodeAttribute, LabelAttribute, ISRCAttribute.
• JingleTypes: The item types that should be reported as jingles (usage type “J”). Leave empty if you do not want to mark any items as jingles.

Gramex

• StationID: The station ID assigned by Gramex.
• ShowName, MiscInfo: Fixed values written into the respective fields.
• CopyrightOwner1Attribute … CopyrightOwner5Attribute, ComposerCountryCodeAttribute, RecordCompanyAttribute, RecordCodeAttribute, CDNumberAttribute, TrackAttribute, CountryAttribute, StudioLiveTypeAttribute, YearAttribute, ISRCAttribute.

Gramo

CatalogAttribute, ISRCAttribute, LabelAttribute, CountryAttribute, YearAttribute.

SUISA

• Sender: The name of your station.
• One Attribute_... parameter for each additional field of the SUISA format, e.g. Attribute_Komponist, Attribute_ISRC, Attribute_Label or Attribute_Genre. By default, each parameter refers to an attribute named like the SUISA field.

UPFR

This format does not have any export parameters.

ZAiKS/ZPAV

ComposerAttribute, LyricistAttribute, AlbumAttribute, ReleaseDateAttribute, LabelAttribute, PublisherAttribute, ISRCAttribute.

ZAMP

ComposerAttribute, LyricistAttribute, ArrangerAttribute, ISRCAttribute, and Additional1Attribute … Additional3Attribute for up to three additional fields of your choice.