Artist Content Report

This built-in report produces a file showing the total number of songs in the library by each Artist and the total number of plays of the Artists’ songs during a selected time frame; usually a week or a month.

Watch the video on YouTube: Artist Report

Run the artist report

There’s a rather unique built-in artist report in Music 1 that you might find interesting to look at from time to time. Here’s how to get to it.

Create the report

1. Open the File menu and create a new report.

2. Name it. Steve calls his "Artist List".

3. Set the report type to artist headings (print artist headings).

Set the period

Right below that, the report gives you the percentage of play each artist received of the total plays of all artists over a period of time.

• Leave the period at seven days, or set it to a month if you want. It takes a while to tabulate.

• You can also tick "include played tracks only". For example, you might be playing 15 songs by the Rolling Stones but have 35 Rolling Stones songs in, say, a holding category somewhere.

• The ending day is the last day you’ve scheduled.

Choose the categories and print

1. Click Test Print.

2. Select the categories you want to include. Steve includes only the categories he has in rotation.

3. Click Print, print the file to PDF, and save it.

It can take anywhere from 60 to 90 seconds, maybe two minutes, depending on how many artists are in your library. On Steve’s computer it took about 35 seconds.

Read the report

The report shows every artist that received any spins in the seven-day period. In Steve’s example:

• Chris Rea: 8 songs in rotation, 11 plays over the seven days.

• Eagles: 23 songs in rotation, some of them in very light rotation, and 11 plays in total.

• Fleetwood Mac: 19 songs in play, 26 plays.

What you’ll do with this information, I don’t know. Steve runs the report once or twice a year, takes a look at it, and thinks: hmm, that’s interesting.