News on the hour
A news bulletin comes from outside: a provider, your own newsroom, or an automatically generated bulletin from headlines. It gets a fixed place in the clock, usually right after the hour anchor, with a news bed and a sounder around it. The question is not whether it is possible, but what happens when the file is late. With us: the slot plays the previous version or is skipped, depending on how the slot is set, and the news bed never starts through a link.
This hour's weather
The weather report is made anew every hour from a weather source and voiced by the AI voice, in the station's language and with the place name. It is the first element after the hour anchor and starts exactly on it. Important detail: if the weather source or the voice fails, the previous version stays and is played. There is no separate emergency scenario; the fallback is built into how the file is replaced. If it is already past five past the hour, the weather for that hour is skipped.
Listener requests
A request comes in via the app or the website. It is checked: does the song exist in the library, was it not just played, is the text not nonsense. Then it lands in the next suitable slot of the current hour and the AI presenter reads it, with the requester's name. This is one of the few permitted exceptions to the rule that the clock decides everything: a listener may add something, provided it is within the hour and has a verifiable reason. The same artist twice in a row because of a request is a fault we have had and closed.
Phone calls
A generated phone call is a link with two voices: the presenter and a caller, edited with pauses and a telephone tone. It belongs in the clock as an ordinary template and follows the same rules: start on the extro, not through the news, and not next to a jingle unless one is deliberately linked to it.
What to agree with your vendor
Who delivers the news and in which format; what the deadline per hour is; whether the weather has a fallback; how requests are checked; and whether you can set all of this differently per daypart. Ask about the logic on failure, not only about the feature. A feature that gives silence at the first missing file is not a feature.
Frequently asked questions
Can I connect my own news provider?
Yes: a bulletin as an audio file in a fixed place or via a link, with a time in the clock. The agreement on deadline and fallback is made during setup.
Does the AI also read traffic or local announcements?
Anything that arrives as text can become a template: local announcements, events, a programme trailer. You decide the source and the frequency.
Can listeners have requests read with their name?
Yes, if they indicate that with the request. The name is checked before it is spoken.