This article will give you an overview of Takeover and Takeover Countdown.  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Takeover Overview
  • Takeover Clock Setup
    • Elements needed
      • Begin Song Replacement
      • End Song Replacement
      • Empty Song Slot
      • Start Voting (OpX Only)
    • Clock structure
      • The hour before Takeover starts
      • The Takeover hour(s)
      • The hour after Takeover ends
• Takeover Countdown Overview
  • Takeover Countdown Set Up
• Programming Ideas
  • Takeover
  • Takeover Countdown

Takeover Overview

Takeover is an interactive programming feature within Tether that allows your listeners to choose every song that plays for an hour, a daypart, or even 24/7!

Takeover Clock Setup

This section outlines how to set up a clock in your music scheduler for Takeover. A Tether license (or a legacy LDR1, #engage, or Takeover license) is required to make Takeover actually function in your automation system. These instructions will also work for a Takeover Countdown as well.

Elements needed

You'll set up the following elements (see the table under each element for details on your automation system):

• Begin Song Replacement
• End Song Replacement
• Empty Song Slot
• Start Voting (OpX Only)

In most cases, you'll want to create these elements before building your clocks. If you're using WideOrbit with MusicMaster, it'll be easier to create the elements directly on the clocks themselves.

If you use GSelector, your commands can be created either as Breaknotes (under Clocks) or as Links (under Linker). If you see fields configured under Interface > Export > Schedule > Breaknote, then you can use Breaknotes for your Tether commands. Otherwise, you must use Linker.

If you don't see your automation system or music scheduler listed, Futuri VIP Support can help you to determine how to add these elements.

Begin Song Replacement

The Begin Song Replacement is the command that turns on Takeover.

End Song Replacement

The End Song Replacement is the command that turns off Takeover.

Empty Song Slot

Empty Song Slots are placed in the log where you want Takeover to insert songs.

Start Voting (OpX Only)

The "Start Voting" command is required only for OpX stations, to tell the automation system to start fetching winners for Takeover.

Clock structure

When building Tether clocks, we recommend making copies of existing clocks first (from the same position in your assignment grid) and then modifying those copies. You'll likely have three different clocks for Takeover:

• The hour before Takeover starts
• The Takeover hour(s)
• The hour after Takeover ends

The hour before Takeover starts

To build a Takeover clock, you'll place your Begin Song Replacement in the clock wherever you want users to start voting. This must be at least a few minutes before the first song you want to insert, so most stations place this command near the last stopset of the previous hour (and pair it with imaging to promote Takeover starting at the top of the next hour). Below is an example of this type of clock setup:

If your station uses OpX, you will place your Start Voting command right next to your Begin Song Replacement command. If you don't use OpX, you don't need that command at all.

The Takeover hour(s)

Everywhere you want Takeover to insert a song, you'll place your Empty Song Slot (or, for Zetta stations, you'll schedule the empty category you created in the steps above). The rest of the hour is built like a normal clock, with imaging, voicetracks, and stopsets wherever they would normally go.

It's a good idea to stack some extra Empty Song Slots at the end of the hour, in case the hour coincidentally fills with your playlist's shortest songs.

It's also possible to place scheduled songs in a Takeover hour. We'd recommend against doing this more than once or twice per hour, since it sort of defeats the purpose of Takeover and can confuse users when the #1 song in the queue is not the next one to play, but here are some good reasons stations sometimes pre-schedule songs during Takeover:

• To serve as a buffer between turning Takeover on with the Begin Song Replacement, and attempting to fill the first Empty Song Slot
• To serve as a buffer after a sync, since some automation systems may not be able to react fast enough after syncing to plug in a winning song right away
• To give voicetrackers a pre-scheduled song to talk into or out of

The hour after Takeover ends

When you want to turn Takeover off, place the End Song Replacement command in a clock. We typically recommend placing this at the top of the first hour AFTER Takeover, rather than at the end of the Takeover hour, to make sure it's not synced out.

If the End Song Replacement is synced out, Takeover will stay in the "on" position on your website and will be misleading to users, so that's why it's helpful to place it in the NEXT clock instead.

You may also want to check out our articles on Takeover separation goals and Takeover playlist exports for more information on those setup steps.

Takeover Countdown Overview

With Takeover's Countdown Mode, your listeners will have the power to vote in a real-time, live countdown feature - and keep voting all the way until the #1 song plays!

Songs that have already played in the countdown are locked in position at the top of the page, so users can see what has already played, and what they're still voting for.

On the Jock Page, presenters will see the lowest-voted song first (in the “Next” position).

Takeover Countdown Set Up

You'll want to provide a Takeover Countdown playlist that is at least a few songs larger than your countdown. For example, if you're playing a Top 6 countdown, we would recommend a playlist of at least 10 songs (so that there's still some suspense when they're battling it out for #1).

You can manage playlists in the Futuri Control Room under Takeover > Playlists and Songs. If you need assistance creating Takeover playlists or scheduling them to switch in advance, click here.

You'll also need to place the Countdown into a clock in your music scheduler. The Tether Countdown feature uses the same clock setup as a normal Takeover clock (please see above Takeover Clock Setup)

Next, Futuri VIP Support will work with you to configure separation goals properly for a countdown. Futuri VIP Support will need to know the following:

• When will your voting start?
• When will your Countdown winners start to play back? Any songs played at that time will be counted in the Tether voting window as Countdown winners, whether they were inserted by Futuri or inserted by hand.
• How many songs will be in your countdown?
• How long will it take for your winning songs to play back? This will be the value we set for "song separation," to make sure the same song does not play twice in the countdown.
• Do you need an artist separation goal during your countdown? If so, we'd recommend that we set it fairly low (i.e. 3-5 minutes) to prevent multiple songs from the same artist from clumping together toward the end of the countdown.

Other more complex Takeover goals (if you have them) will automatically be ignored while Countdown mode is enabled. It will not be necessary to manually lower/disable each of these goals, if they are used during traditional Takeover shows on the station.

If you would like to set up a Takeover Countdown for your station, please contact Futuri VIP Support.

Programming Ideas

Takeover

For aircheck examples of stations using Takeover, click here or see the SoundCloud player below.

Takeover Countdown

Below are an aircheck and a video that Power 95.3 in Orlando made when they launched Takeover Countdown.