Scripts: Creating a TVD Database
Contents
Your television plan uses a number of components, defined by days of the week, times of the day, program genres, specific networks, and specific sets of program titles. In TView, you get to define all of the components the way you want, and a script is where it's done. It's called a script because it's a set of instructions to tell TView how to pull the audience data you'll need.
As the audience data is gathered using the instructions from the script, it is assembled into a database.
When you have a new planning project and start a plansheet, it will draw upon the information in one of those databases.
Do I Always Have To Start By Creating A New Database?
This is a pretty important question, so let's emphasize the answer:
NO!
NO!
NO!
This is an important feature of TView. In many cases, you can go directly to analyzing a plan simply by choosing an existing database. Many agencies and planners like to have one or a few "standard" databases that handle most, say 90%, of all planning situations.
This makes TView fast, pleasant, and efficient.
It is only when you want to revise or add new components or daypart definitions that you need to create a new database.
All About Scripts
In this chapter we'll cover:
| • | Understanding the relationships of scripts, databases and plansheets |
| • | Using a new or existing script |
| • | What if you can't find your script file |
| • | Choosing a data source and dates to be used |
| o | Group: broadcast, cable or syndication |
| o | Commercial formatting of telecasts |
| • | Construct a new database from your script |
| • | What if a daypart is missing from the completed database? |
| • | What if my plansheet can't find its database? |
| • | Get info: What's in this database? |
| • | An all-text view of a script |