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Create a show

Build a complete show, from its name to its rundown, in three tabs

What is "Create a show" for?

This page builds a complete show in one go: its name, its days and times, the voice of its presenter, and its rundown — the sequence of elements that make it up (jingle, music, presenter, feature…). When you confirm, the platform writes two things, and two things only:

  • a rotation playlist, visible afterwards on the "Playlists" page;
  • a slot in the schedule grid on the "Schedule" page, on the selected days and times.

You no longer need to build the playlist on one side and place it on the grid on the other: the generator does both, and shows you the actual rundown before you confirm.

Good to know: The show always follows the rundown from top to bottom, then loops. There are no fixed clock times here: to broadcast a file at an exact time (a news bulletin at exactly 8:00), use the "Appointment" tab on the "Schedule" page. The two complement each other: the appointment is inserted into the show currently on air.

Where to find it?

Open the "Schedule" page from the sidebar, then click the "Create a show" button in the toolbar, next to your station name. The direct address is /dashboard/programmation/emission.

  • Without a station, the page displays "No station configured".
  • While the station is being set up, it displays "Station being installed".
  • All times are expressed in your station's local time.

The page consists of three numbered tabs — "1 The show", "2 The rundown" and "3 The preview" — and an action bar fixed at the bottom of the screen showing the credit cost, the draft status, and the buttons "Finish later", "Cancel" and "Create the show". A tab with a missing setting displays its number on a yellow background.

Tab "The show"

At the top, the "Start from a template" block displays template cards: the frameworks provided by VestaRadio, and those you have saved yourself. Clicking a template fills in this page and the rundown; anything you had already entered is preserved. You can also ignore the templates and build your show from scratch.

Show settings:

  • "Show name" — required, 80 characters maximum. This is the name of the playlist created and the name of the slot in the schedule grid.
  • "Times" — start and end time, with the calculated duration shown below (for example "= 3 h 00").
  • "Colour in the grid" — the visual marker for the slot.
  • "Show topic" — optional, 300 characters. This is the thread the AI presenter follows: they talk about it, they never announce it. The "Suggest" button asks the assistant for three possible angles based on the show name; the setting "They return to it every 1 in 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 segments" controls how often the topic reappears (once every three by default), in addition to the opening and closing.
  • "Show presenter" — the default voice for all their segments: "Choose a voice", the intonation ("Standard" by default), the background sound ("No background" by default, with its volume once a background is selected), the "Duration" (~10, ~15, ~20, ~30 or ~45 s) and the "Tone" (Warm, Fun, Corporate, Local, Lounge, Classic). Each "Presenter" line in the rundown inherits these settings; you can always change them on a specific line.
  • "Broadcast days" — required. Tick days individually or use the shortcuts "Mon→Fri", "Weekend" and "Every day".
Tip: Give the show a name first, then click "Suggest": without a name, the assistant will not search for an angle. A specific topic ("the tracks that defined each summer, decade by decade") produces far more engaging segments than a vague mood.

Tab "The rundown"

The "Show rundown" card lists the elements in the order they will air. While it is empty, it displays "The rundown is empty". The "Add an element" menu offers four types:

  • "Jingle / top of the hour"
  • "Music"
  • "Presenter"
  • "Feature"

Each line in the rundown can be reordered by drag and drop, and offers a listen button (a random track from the source, or a sample text for an AI presenter), then three actions: "Settings", "Duplicate" and "Remove". The "Insert here" button, between two lines, adds an element at that exact position. At the bottom of the card, three counters: "Elements", "On loop" and "Once only".

Two buttons at the top of the tab: "Duplicate the show" uses this show as the starting point for a new one, and "Save as template" saves the rundown under a "Template name" with an optional "Description", so you can find it again under "Start from a template".

Example

Studio Nova is building its breakfast show "The Nova Wake-Up", Monday to Friday from 6:00 to 9:00:

Jingle / top of the hour→ Music (Pop, 3 tracks)→ AI Presenter→ Music (80s, 2 tracks)→ Feature (PAD news bulletin)→ Jingle (Station category)

Once the last element has aired, the show loops back to the first, until 9:00. Six lines are enough: the loop fills the three hours.

Why: a single "AI Presenter" line between two music blocks produces a break roughly every five songs. The counter in the action bar then shows how many segments — and therefore how many credits — each morning consumes.

The content of a line

The "Settings" button on a line opens its window. The first field is the "Label displayed in the rundown". The "Content" block then presents cards: click a card to select it and configure its details, or use "Configure details". The available options depend on the type of line.

Jingle / top of the hour:

  • "Random from a category" — each time, a different jingle is drawn from the selected "Jingle category".
  • "A specific file" — always the same jingle. The "Produce with AI" button opens the "Produce a jingle" window without leaving the page.
  • "One file per day" — Monday has its jingle, Tuesday has its own.

Music:

  • "A genre from the library" — tracks from the chosen genre in the VestaRadio music library.
  • "A mood" — a pre-built thematic selection (chill, summer, 80s…).
  • "One of my categories" — your own files, stored in your "My music" bins.
  • "A specific track" — always the same track.
  • "One track per day" — a different track depending on the broadcast day.

For a genre or mood, a "Release years" filter (from… to…) narrows the selection, and a counter shows the number of available tracks with your current settings.

Presenter:

  • "AI Presenter" — a text is written and a voice is generated just before each broadcast: they announce the track that just played or the one coming up, and weave in the show topic. Two cards: "The show presenter" (the voice configured in tab 1; change it there and all lines follow) or "A voice specific to this line", with its own voice, intonation, background sound, "On-air duration" and "Tone".
  • "An already produced voice track" — always the same recording, taken from your "Voice Tracks", or produced on the spot with "Produce with AI". It uses no credits at broadcast time.

The "Notes for the presenter" field (optional, 500 characters) is a writing instruction: "always give the year of the track, two sentences maximum". It guides the text; it is never read on air.

Feature:

  • "A feature category" — on air, the most recent feature in that category is played.
  • "A ready-to-air feature" — a feature from the PAD catalogue you are subscribed to. The file is resolved at broadcast time: you always hear the latest version.
  • "A specific feature" — always the same recording.
  • "One feature per day" — its own on Monday, a different one on Tuesday. The selector opens VestaRadio PAD features and your own features in two tabs.
Good to know: In all three "… per day" modes, a day left blank broadcasts nothing. This is intentional: it is also the way to have an element air only on certain days of the show. The window summarises "N days out of M filled in", or warns "No day filled in: this element will never air". The days shown are those ticked under "Broadcast days": configure those first.

Playback rules

Below the content, the "Playback rules" block controls when the line airs. There is no "when" to choose: the show follows the rundown. A line airs every loop, or just once, and can be bounded.

  • "Play only once in the show" — the line keeps its place in the rundown: it airs on the first loop, then does not play again until the show ends. When unticked, it returns every loop. Ideal for an opening hook or a daily feature.
  • "Do not replay before" (in minutes, 0 = no constraint) — the minimum gap between two plays of this line. This is the setting that spaces out an element. It disappears if "Once only" is ticked: "once only" already imposes a gap of an entire show.
  • "Do not play before" (0 = from the start) and "Do not play after" (0 = until the end) — define a window, in minutes, capped at 120. If "before" exceeds "after", the window displays "this element would never air" and creation is blocked.
  • "Quantity per play" (from 1 to 20) — for multi-source lines (category, genre, mood): elements are played back to back. A specific file, a file per day, or an AI presenter always plays as a single unit.
Good to know — dynamic scheduling: By default, your station uses dynamic scheduling: it does not read a fixed list, it prepares the next segment in batches of approximately 20 minutes, taking anti-repetition, appointments and adverts into account. In this mode, "Do not play before" and "Do not play after" are counted from the start of the batch the station is preparing in advance, not from the start of the show. The practical consequence, noted in the window: beyond a quarter of an hour, an element with "do not play before" would never air. Use these two bounds with small values, and prefer "Once only" to mark the beginning of a show.

Tab "The preview"

The "Rundown preview" tab asks the engine to actually compose the show: real tracks, real durations, real times. The "Refresh" button recalculates after any change. While the rundown is incomplete, the tab displays "Complete the rundown to see the show take shape".

  • The times shown are indicative: they shift with the actual duration of each track.
  • For "AI Presenter" lines, the preview writes an example of what the voice will say. On air, each segment is rewritten a few minutes beforehand, with the track that just played and the one coming up: the text will differ, but in the same vein.
  • A "per day" line is marked "File chosen according to the day — the preview shows today's".
  • The preview counts the actual number of segments per broadcast, which is what will be billed. If fewer come out than expected ("you requested one every N min"), the rotation loop is too long: reduce the number of tracks per play, or accept the difference.
Tip: Always open the preview before creating: it is free, and it is the only place where you can see the actual sequence, the number of segments and therefore the exact cost of a broadcast.

Credit cost

The action bar permanently displays the cost:

  • "No credits used — this show contains no AI presenter": jingles, music, features and already produced voice tracks do not debit anything at broadcast time.
  • Otherwise, "N segment(s) per broadcast · N credits per broadcast (balance: …)". Before the preview, this is a maximum ("at most"); after the preview, it is the actual count ("based on the preview").
  • An AI Presenter segment is counted on the basis of a voice of approximately 15 seconds, i.e. 5 credits (1 credit = 3 seconds). If a topic is entered, it is researched once per broadcast, with a small additional research cost.
  • If the balance does not cover one broadcast, a "Top up" link appears.

Credits are debited at broadcast time, each time a segment airs, not when the show is created. A show broadcast five mornings a week therefore consumes five times the amount displayed.

Example

"The Nova Wake-Up" runs for 3 hours with one AI Presenter line per six-element loop. The preview counts 22 segments per broadcast, i.e. 110 credits per morning and approximately 550 credits per week Monday to Friday.

Why: it is the length of the rotation loop that drives the bill. Increasing "Music (Pop)" from 3 to 5 tracks per play lengthens the loop and brings the morning down to around fifteen segments, without changing the voice or the topic.

Drafts, creation and updates

The page automatically saves a draft a few moments after each change; the status is shown in the action bar ("Saving…", then "Draft saved at HH:MM", or "Draft not saved" if there is a problem). The "Finish later" button saves and takes you back to the schedule.

On the next visit, a bar at the top of the page lists your drafts with their status ("draft" or "on air"), a button to resume each one and a cross to delete it. Resuming a draft replaces what is on screen: a confirmation is requested.

The "Create the show" button writes the playlist then the slot, with a progress bar. Once created, the show carries the "on air" badge and the button becomes "Update the show": you can reopen it from the drafts bar and modify its rundown without recreating anything.

Good to know: The created playlist appears in "Playlists" and remains editable in the rotation editor; the slot appears in the "Schedule" grid, where you can move, duplicate or delete it like any other slot. Deleting the playlist also removes its slots from the grid.

Frequently asked questions

Show or appointment? A show is a loop that fills a time slot; an appointment broadcasts a file or a segment at an exact time, inserted into whatever is currently on air. A news bulletin at exactly 8:00 is an appointment; a bulletin "somewhere in the first loop of the breakfast show" is a Feature line ticked "Once only".

Show or playlist? The generator produces an ordinary playlist. Everything it does can be done manually in the playlist editor, but it saves you from configuring the voice, topic, pacing and slot line by line.

Why does my presenter speak less often than expected? Because the Presenter line only airs once per rundown loop. The longer the loop (many tracks per play), the fewer segments there are. The preview will flag this.

Can the voice be changed afterwards? Yes: reopen the show from the drafts bar, change "Show presenter" in tab 1 and click "Update the show". All lines that inherit the show voice will follow.

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