Traffic for Ad Invoicing

Etere Traffic for managing contracts ad invoicing in a NEW ETERE SQL.

As being announced, on last year’s September ETERE, with its department ‘Research and Development’, maintained the promise and all the new functions were developed in SQL.
ETERE decided to migrate its database towards the SQL platform because of the inherent capability to manage constantly bigger archives and to satisfy necessities of clients from Radio, TV and Commercial agencies, which must succeed to organize and manage complex database simply and fast.For these motives, ETERE decided to invest and concentrate its research and its development, not any longer on a standard platform, but on a more serviceable one. This one was located in SQL 2000, by now 'de facto' a market standard.
SQL means higher speed, data security, interchangeability of platforms, in other words: work better, work faster. SQL tests showed a speed increase round 20:1. And so from experience and knowledge, result of ETERE being a part of the broadcast-world for the past 13 years and of a development equal to 5000 hours/men, are created the new “commercial programming and management” and relative ”contracts and invoicing”.
ETERE Traffic manages the commercial gathering, helps planning and selling your commercial space. It is capable of managing various stations contemporarily with synchronized planning and not, controls your agent’s selling commissions, creates schedule preventives and balances for your clients. As we know, TV networks define their commercial contracts before they plan the scheduling of the events. At this point, the only known issue is a daily scheduling management, base on the event types.

A “scheduling table” is created referring to the event types. In this case, the timeslots’ reservation is actually a “virtual” reservation, since is not possible to know at what time the commercial is scheduled, and the name of the event that will “contain” the commercial.
The TV daily scheduling created with ETERE is divided into blocks, with every single block representing a different timeslot. An event type, or target (primetime movie, Saturday night show, cartoons, news, etc.. ), is assigned to every single timeslot.

The timeslot can be named as the event as well, to make the scheduling job easier and faster. Moreover, the timeslot can be split into several clusters. With ETERE, you can set the cluster’s number, length, and position in the timeslot. A cluster off-set can also be defined. The off-set is the time difference between the beginning of the timeslot and the on air time of each cluster included in the timeslot. Every cluster has its own off-set. The innovation is that commercials are now sold in timeslots, and not in fixed times, as it happened in the past.

When the recorded clip is delivered to the network, the person in charge of the event’s scheduling has already divided the scheduling into several timeslots. At this point, all he has to do is assigning the clip to a timeslot. With ETERE you can assign a clip to a certain timeslot, that is already scheduled for a certain period. The clip will be automatically assigned to all the scheduled timeslots. Every timeslot assigned to a clip can be viewed, in order to have a clear and updated overlook of the situation. With ETERE is also possible to assign a clip to a timeslot using an insertion sequence, using a simple drag and drop function. It’s also possible to select or delete the clusters I want to assign or not assign to a certain clip. Moreover, it’s possible to know if a cluster is reserved or not. In the first case (reserved cluster) you can view if this has been transmitted or not. In the second case (non reserved cluster) the cluster can be reserved. The automatic commercial planning is the ideal way to optimize commercial space: insert the number of spots to be broadcasted, the preferred timeslot, and, if you want, the priority, and ETERE will automatically find the right spot for your commercial. When you proceed with the cluster’s reservation, the software will warn you if you are trying to reserve a spot from a past date, or if the cluster’s insertion time is incorrect. Furthermore, make sure you don’t exceed the commercial percentage you set, and do not schedule events of the same product category too close one to the other.

It’s also possible to control the inner distribution of the commercial inside the cluster, and to modify it whenever you wish to. Every change is automatically updated in the ETERE database. Spots can be added, deleted or removed any time.Moreover, it is possible to view, for each cluster, its duration (scheduled and real), the commercials included in the cluster itself, and the scheduled date and time.

Clips can be always added to or deleted from a single commercial. It is also possible to have a low resolution preview of every clip. Color and fonts can also be edited in every ETERE window.For ETERE different timeslots (even based on type of product), rotations (even of different elements) and optimization are standard.

The newest “Traffic” organization allows to associate to the acquired spots not any longer just one station, but more than one; that is useful for a network. Accessory costs are referred to single spot and not anymore referred to a contract, so they can be managed as if they were simple installments.

To every single spot can be associated various contents, which wasn’t possible in past. A new type of personalized research allowing to create and save the SQL query has been developed, through a powerful instrument “query manager”. It is possible to trace even a secondary event.

Invoicing can be done in a different way at each broadcasting. There are no more bonds or steel rules to be respected. The new “relational” structure of the database allows a slim and immediate management of information. To speed up the document research related to the contracts, the latter can be associated to bitmap files. All documents related to commercials with the following invoice in a digital format. Print of a contract can be effected on the contract form, with the possibility to choose the document destination.

Another news in the commercial field with relative contracts and invoices, is the possibility that every single spot can be associated to more contracts and following to more priceslots; this way there is an immediate diversity from what you earn based on a timeslot where the spot will be broadcasted. At each contract form, there can be associated a “media center” for statistical research. It can’t be forgot the ETERE Traffic extension on the WEB. Using it, agents are able to monitorize in real time the contracts they’re competent of, same as commercial agencies, and media centers and even final users. Connecting to ETERE Web will make viewing and printing of the commercial spaces easy. All you to need to access is a password. Moreover, ETERE Web allows you to access the companies’ web site and view a frame accurate playing of the commercials.

The ETERE Web intelligent connection allows the user to control and view only contracts of their competence. ETERE Web allows to reduce 80% of paper documents and 90% of necessary work to communicate data to interested subjects. With these powerful features ETERE Traffic is placed as a new touchstone for the commercial planning whether it is radiophonic or television, and is suitable not only for the stations, but even for networks and big commercial agencies.

Standard interfaces towards the external invoicing programs are foreseen; all this while waiting the ETERE Money SQL, which will be the new standard for the invoice management, anticipated for January 2002.