Track Categories

The Track categories page manages the values used to describe tracks and to build Clock Format rules.

Good category lists make the library easier to search and make playlist generation more predictable. Poor category lists create confusion: programmers start using different labels for the same thing, Clock Formats become harder to read, and generated playlists become harder to explain.

Power Studio uses separate lists for:

• Criteria: broad music or content classification, such as current, recurrent, jingle, promo or commercial.
• Special: station-specific tags such as format, show, feature, season or special programming.
• Rotation: rotation strength or planning priority, such as heavy, medium, light or extra attention.
• Audience: intended audience group.
• Decade: decade or era, such as 1990s or 2000s.
• Language: language or instrumental status.

These values are used in track metadata, search filters, Clock Formats, separation rules and playlist analysis. Treat them as part of the station's music scheduling language.

Design The Category Model First

Before adding many values, decide what each list is for at your station.

Keep category names short and understandable to non-technical users. The best category is the one a music director, producer and presenter all interpret the same way.

Keep Tempo And Era Separate

Use Tempo for tempo, BPM for a numeric beats-per-minute range, Decade for an era, and Year for a specific year range. Use Special for an additional property that those fields do not already describe, such as Local, Acoustic or a named show.

Combining tempo and era in a Special label duplicates information that already has dedicated fields. The label must then be maintained alongside the track's Tempo and Decade values, and those values can drift apart. Power Studio checks assigned metadata; it does not translate words in a label into other field values.

On a Clock Format line, all these conditions apply to the same track. A Special selection adds a requirement; it does not override Tempo, Decade or the other criteria groups. See Selection Criteria for worked examples.

If an existing library uses combined labels, follow the migration steps below. Confirm the dedicated metadata and update dependent Clock Formats before removing old labels.

Changing Category Lists

Before changing a category list:

1. Check where the value is already used in tracks.
2. Check Clock Formats that depend on the value.
3. Check separation or maximum-per-playlist rules that use the value.
4. Tell music programmers and administrators what changed.

Do not delete or rename values casually. A category value that looks unused in one view may still be important in a Clock Format or in older tracks.

For music scheduling, fewer clear values are usually better than many overlapping values that mean nearly the same thing. For example, decide whether the station really needs both Soft pop and Soft / Easy, or whether one consistent label is easier to maintain.

Renaming And Cleanup

When cleaning up category lists, prefer a planned migration:

1. Search for tracks using the old value.
2. Decide which new value should replace it.
3. Update track metadata.
4. Update Clock Formats and rules.
5. Generate and review a playlist before removing the old value.

Do not remove a category value just because it looks untidy. First confirm that no current Clock Format, special program, import process or legacy library item still depends on it.

Practical Use

Use categories consistently:

• Use Criteria for the main type of content that programmers expect to schedule.
• Use Special for station-specific needs that do not fit the normal category model.
• Use Rotation to guide how often music should appear.
• Use Audience, Decade and Language when Clock Formats need those properties.

Content type is configured on the track itself and is separate from these category lists. Content type affects Now Playing behavior and playlist generation logic. For example, music tracks normally publish title and artist, while jingles and spots usually should not replace the current song metadata.

For music tracks, playlist generation can take the repeat values of both title and artist into account. For jingles, the title repeat value is the relevant separation value; the artist is usually the station, show or presenter and is not useful as a music-style artist separation rule.

See Asset Management and Format Planner for the places where these categories are used day to day.

Suggested Station Rules

Write down a small set of station rules for categories. For example:

• Current, Recurrent, Oldie and Gold are Criteria values and are used in Clock Formats.
• Program Jingle and Station Jingle are content planning values, not artist names.
• Rotation values should be changed only by the music director or another scheduler.
• Special values may be used for campaigns, seasons or show-specific material, but should be cleaned up after they are no longer needed.
• New category values should be added only when an existing value cannot describe the item.

This keeps the library stable as more people add content.

Review Checklist

Review the category lists periodically:

1. Check for spelling variants and near-duplicates.
2. Check values that no longer match the station format.
3. Check whether Clock Formats still use the intended categories.
4. Check whether imports or external systems assign expected values.
5. Ask music programmers whether the lists still match how they schedule.