Magazine Priority

Magazines have priority according to their order in the tree. The first magazine has the highest priority, the second magazine has a higher priority than the third, and so on.

The lowest priority magazine must be scheduled to always play, and it must include pages in the playlist that are also set to always play. This ensures that there is always something displaying on air.

Priority and Playback

There is a direct relationship between a magazine’s priority and what is displayed on the playback. When there is more than one magazine in a zone, Audience.foundation searches the magazines to determine what it should play.

Audience.foundation will always play the playlist of the highest priority magazine, unless

• The playlist has no valid content (meaning no pages are scheduled to play); or

• The magazine is scheduled to play at specific dates and or times.

If any of these two conditions apply, then Audience.foundation will follow the same procedure with the next magazine in the list.

A higher priority magazine will remain dormant until any pages it contains are scheduled to play. At that time, it will pre-empt any lower priority magazine. When the higher priority magazine is finished playing its content it will go dormant again and Audience.foundation will look for the next scheduled magazine according to priority.

To Raise or Lower Magazine Priority:

1.Right click on the magazine.

2.Select Raise Priority or Lower Priority.

Example of Use

Keep an empty highest priority magazine for emergencies.

One method of use is to set the highest priority magazine to play all the time (the default), but to leave its playlist empty. In this way, when content is added (emergency messages, for example), the magazine will play almost immediately, and will stay on air until the content is removed (or the magazine priority is lowered). This is particularly effective when used in conjunction with Audience.billboard, because content can be created from anywhere where there is an Internet connection. School closure announcements, or weather warning messages can then be created and broadcast almost immediately. Pages must be scheduled to end, however, otherwise they will play indefinitely.

For Audience.playback.tv or Audience.playback.sign systems that use zone layering, the playlist should not be empty. Instead, it should contain an Alpha Background page.

Use a scheduled higher priority magazine to play similar content.

Another method is to group content together, like ads, and schedule the magazine to play in intervals, like play once every hour. This avoids having to set all the pages to play at specific times--they can be left with the default schedule (always play) and the magazine can be scheduled just the once instead.