Until now your station had one rotation. Everything you uploaded sat in a single list, played in the order you dragged it into, and started again at the top — the same run at seven in the morning as at midnight on a Saturday.
That's changed. You can now build as many playlists as you want out of your library, and say which one plays on which days between which hours. Breakfast is quiet, drive time has a pulse, the news runs at six, last week's podcast goes out again on Wednesday evening, and late Friday is something else entirely — none of it needing you to be awake.
What a Schedule Looks Like
A schedule is a set of slots. Each slot is a playlist, a set of days and a start and end time — and an optional name, because “Drive time” is easier to scan than 16:00.
The Schedule page draws the whole week out, so you can see the shape of it rather than read it. Gaps are where nothing is scheduled, and your default playlist fills them.
Look at Friday and Saturday night in that picture. A slot that runs 23:00 to 02:00 crosses midnight, so it shows up twice — at the right edge of the day it starts on, and again at the left edge of the next morning. You write it once.
Playlists Come First
Slots point at playlists, so playlists are where you start. The Playlists page has a rail down the side: every playlist you've made, how many tracks are in each and how long each one runs.
A few things worth knowing about how they behave:
- A track can be in as many playlists as you like. It's stored once and counted against your 3 GB once. Putting the same song in Breakfast and in Weekend brunch costs you nothing.
- Each playlist remembers its own place. Leave one part-way through and come back to it tomorrow and it carries on where it stopped, rather than restarting from the top every time its slot comes round.
- Shuffle is per playlist.Flip it on and that playlist deals itself a fresh random order each time it runs out — every track airs once before any track airs twice. Sequential playlists play exactly as you dragged them.
- One playlist is the default.It's what plays whenever no slot covers the current moment, it's where uploads land when you don't say otherwise, and it can't be deleted. You can move the badge to a different playlist any time.
It Doesn't Have to Be Music
Nothing about a playlist says it has to hold songs. It holds audio files, and the schedule decides when they air — which is the whole of what a talk station needs.
- A news bulletin at a fixed time.Drop your recorded bulletins into their own playlist and give it a short slot — six o'clock to half past, weekdays. Drive time ends exactly where the news begins, because slots are allowed to touch.
- A podcast repeat. Put the last few episodes in a playlist and hand it an hour on a Wednesday evening. People who missed it live catch it on air, and the episodes carry over to the following week because each playlist keeps its own place.
- A syndicated or pre-recorded show.A guest mix, a sponsored half-hour, a language programme on Sunday mornings — all the same shape: a playlist, some days, two times.
Mixing the two is the point. A station can run music most of the day, break for the news, and come back to music without anyone touching it.
Knowing What's On
The top of the schedule page answers the only question that matters when you open it: what is my station playing right now, and what happens next.
Once the station is on, your Overview says which playlist AutoDJ is on, and the status band across the top of every dashboard page names the track it is playing — so you can tell at a glance whether the station is running the playlist you meant it to.
How the Switch Actually Happens
This is the part worth being precise about, because it's where people's expectations and what a radio station can do tend to part company.
By default, slots change at the next track boundary, never mid-song. If your drive-time slot starts at 16:00 and a six-minute track started at 15:58, drive time starts when that track ends. In practice a slot can begin a couple of minutes after the time written next to it.
Or switch on “Start exactly on time”. Then the slot starts on the dot. As 16:00 gets close, AutoDJ picks a song from a shuffled playlist that ends in time, and if none does, it fades out the song that is playing right at 16:00. With only a few seconds left it starts the slot up to 20 seconds early rather than play a fragment.
Going live still beats everything.A slot decides what AutoDJ plays when AutoDJ is what's playing. The moment you pick up the microphone you're on, mid-slot or not, and when you finish the schedule picks up wherever it should be by then.
Slots don't turn your station on or off.An empty Tuesday morning doesn't mean silence — it means your default playlist. The station's power button is still a separate thing you control, as described in the 24/7 release.
Days are when a slot starts.A Friday 22:00–02:00 slot is a Friday slot, even though most of it happens on Saturday. Tick Friday, not Saturday.
Slots can touch but not overlap.Two playlists can't both be on air, so an overlap is flagged in red and the schedule won't save until you fix it. A slot ending at 10:00 and the next starting at 10:00 is fine.
Setting One Up
- Open AutoDJ › Playlists from the sidebar and make a playlist from the rail on the left. Add from library pulls in tracks you've already uploaded; you can also drop new files straight into it.
- Open AutoDJ › Schedule and check the timezone at the top of the page. Your slots are written in that clock; Change next to it sets another one.
- Add slot, pick the playlist, tap the days it runs on and set the start and end time. Give it a label if it helps you.
- Save.Nothing restarts and no listener is dropped — the change is picked up at the next track boundary.
You can keep going up to fifty slots, which is more week than anyone needs.
What This Isn't
To be straight about the edges: jingle settings are station-wide rather than per slot, and there are no one-off dated shows yet. Those are on the list rather than in the product.
Who Gets It
Scheduling is part of AutoDJ, so it comes with Pro, at $20 a month. You buy it from inside your dashboard. Free stations keep everything they had: browser broadcasting, push-to-talk, a file queue, a shareable player page and a hundred listeners at once.
If you're starting from nothing, the guide to starting a station is the place to begin, and what it costs to run one covers the bills nobody mentions until you have them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I schedule a news bulletin or a podcast instead of music?
Yes. A playlist holds audio files, not specifically songs, so recorded bulletins, podcast episodes, a syndicated show or a language programme all work the same way: put them in their own playlist and give it a slot. A station can run music most of the day, break for a fifteen-minute bulletin at six, and come back to music without anyone touching it.
Can I play different music at different times of day?
Yes. Build a playlist for each mood and give it a slot — the days it runs and the hours it covers. Outside every slot your default playlist plays, so the station is never left with nothing to do.
Does the schedule start exactly on time?
Your choice, slot by slot. A slot normally takes over at the next track boundary rather than cutting a song in half, so it can start a couple of minutes late. Switch on Start exactly on time and it starts on the dot: AutoDJ picks a song that ends in time, or fades out the one playing.
What happens if I go live during a scheduled slot?
You take over immediately, the same as always. When you finish, AutoDJ resumes with whichever playlist should be on air at that moment — not necessarily the one that was playing when you started.
Can a slot run past midnight?
Yes. Set an end time earlier than the start time and it carries into the next day; the editor marks it “next day”. Tick the day it startson — a Friday 23:00–02:00 slot is Friday's.
Can the same track be in more than one playlist?
Yes, and it only takes up space once. Your 3 GB is counted per file, not per playlist entry.
What plays when nothing is scheduled?
Your default playlist — the one marked Default in the Playlists rail. Every gap in the week falls back to it, which is why it can't be deleted.