As a Live365 broadcaster, you have a couple different ways you can manage and program your station: AutoDJ, LiveDJ, and Scheduled Events. What are the differences and which is best though? We've covered that below.
What are they?
AutoDJ: AutoDJ ensures that your station is always streaming, even when you have no Events scheduled. If enabled, once you have some tracks uploaded, AutoDJ will automatically pick songs from your library and play them according to your settings and the DMCA.
LiveDJ: LiveDJ mode is when you configure your computer to initiate a streaming session to your Live365 station. This lets you host a live talk show or program your station using software running on your own computer. In order to use LiveDJ, you need to have third-party software that allows you to broadcast live to your stream.
Scheduled Events: Scheduled Events are shows that you have pre-planned and programmed on your station. Each Event must be filled with a Playlist or ClockWheel of your choice. Events can consist of music as well as talk.
Note: No matter your preference, it is extremely important to have AutoDJ enabled at all times so listeners don't ever encounter silence when tuning in to your stream. LiveDJ and scheduled Events will always override AutoDJ, but if there is ever any interruption with LiveDJ and your 3rd-party encoder becomes disconnected, AutoDJ will serve as a backup so your stream doesn't go completely silent.
Which is best?
Genuinely, there is no "best" way to program your station. There are some things you should keep in mind though.
Depending on your station and the audience you're catering to, a certain programming source (ie. AutoDJ, LiveDJ, Scheduled Events) might make the most sense. For example, if you're catering to a small niche, scheduling events with specially curated playlists or having regular live shows might be the best way to program your station. Since you're reaching a small and passionate niche, ensuring that your programming flows a certain way or provides a certain feeling or understanding might be extremely important.
In other circumstances, such as a station consisting of mostly talk programming, you might rely on LiveDJ for some of the time, scheduled Events with pre-recorded talk segments for some of the time, and then have AutoDJ running the rest of the time to keep your station from ever being silent.
However, if you're programming a station mostly consisting of top 40, for example, you might decide that AutoDJ works just fine for you, especially given the ability to create clockwheels in AutoDJ. After all, it can deliver the listener experience of hitting "shuffle" on a massive playlist and many listeners definitely desire that. One note to keep in mind though is that while AutoDJ is an awesome feature to utilize on your station, it could be super beneficial to have some scheduled events or a live show every once in awhile to break it up. Think about it as a listener. Sometimes you might want to hit "shuffle" on all of your songs, but other times you might want a specific themed playlist, whether that be by genre, topic, mood, or anything else.
The point is, there's nothing wrong with relying on one source, but it may become redundant and clear that there's never anything different going on. This is where a scheduled event with a specially curated playlist or a different clockwheel, or a live event could add some much-needed spice to your station if you're only using AutoDJ. Similarly, if you rely on scheduled Events or LiveDJ, AutoDJ could be a good change of pace every once in while to add the "shuffle" element. Simply put, a little diversity in the way you're programming your station goes a long way and is an opportunity for you to ensure you're truly engaging your loyal listeners.
Truthfully, there are many different combinations for programming your station and that's totally up to you. But, it might be worth your time to think about if the way you're programming your station is as engaging as you would like. Sure, you can have a library full of awesome music and/or talk that you feel is totally engaging, but the presentation of it also matters and can make or break whether the content ends up being as engaging as you intended.
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Article Image: Joe007 via Pixabay.
