Broadcast production and promotions have their own vocabulary, and the same word often means different things to a traffic director, a production director and a promotions manager. This glossary defines the terms that come up most when radio, TV and digital teams talk about media workflow, and points out where vCreative fits.

Core workflow terms

Media workflow software. Also called broadcast workflow or content operations software. It runs the operational work between selling an ad or planning a segment and getting it on air: requests, production orders, approvals, revisions, traffic handoffs, promotions and reporting. It is not a traffic system and not an automation system; it covers the coordination layer in between.

Production order (PO). The record that carries a spot from first request to cleared-for-air. A PO holds the client, flight dates, copy, production notes, talent and approvals in one place. In vCreative this is vPPO, a paperless production order system with a named owner at each stage and a searchable archive of every spot.

Spot. A single piece of produced audio or video, usually a commercial or promotional announcement, that gets scheduled and aired.

Trafficking and handoff. Moving a finished, approved spot to the team or system that schedules and airs it. Most delays in broadcast happen at these handoffs between sales, production, traffic and programming.

Continuity. The written copy and instructions for what airs and when, historically managed by a continuity director.

Dub. A copy of a spot distributed for airing, and the act of distributing it.

Turnaround time. How long a request takes to move from submitted to ready for air. Reducing turnaround is one of the clearest returns from a purpose-built workflow platform.

Systems it works alongside (and is not)

Traffic system. Schedules and bills the log, deciding which spots run in which breaks. Examples include WideOrbit and Marketron. A workflow platform feeds clean, approved spots into the traffic system; it does not replace it.

Automation system. Plays the audio to air on schedule (for example RCS Zetta or ENCO). Again, workflow software sits upstream of this, not in place of it.

Media asset management (MAM). Stores, catalogs and retrieves large libraries of media files. MAM is about the assets themselves; workflow software is about the operational work around requesting, producing and approving them.

Newsroom computer system (NRCS). Runs news production: rundowns, scripts and the newsroom. Dalet, Avid MediaCentral and ENPS are newsroom and media systems, not creative production or promotions workflow tools.

Promotions terms

Promotion request form (PRF). The intake record for a promotion, contest or event, capturing what is needed, who owns it and its approvals, the promotions equivalent of a production order. vPromotions manages PRFs across one station or many markets.

Contesting. Running on-air and online contests, giveaways, text-to-win and sweepstakes, including the rules, entries and winners.

Prize fulfillment. The tail end of a contest: confirming the prize, getting it to the winner, collecting release forms and keeping the records for compliance. This is where promotions teams quietly lose hours, and where vPromotions and PromoSuite Next keep the contest, prize inventory, fulfillment status and paperwork in one system.

Audience email marketing. Sending campaigns to a station's opted-in listener or viewer database. On the PromoSuite side this is PromoSuite Mail, which takes audiences and reports from PromoSuite Next and vPromotions as an email campaign audience.

Structure and scale

Voice pool. A shared, company-wide way to request voice talent for spots rather than chasing individuals by email.

Approval and proofing. The review steps where copy and produced audio or video are checked and signed off before a spot clears for air.

Multi-market and hubbing. Coordinating production and promotions across many stations or markets from a central team, with permissions and workflows configured to match the group's structure.

The common thread across all of these is coordination. Media workflow software exists to remove the email and spreadsheet work between requesting creative and getting it on air, so traffic, production and promotions teams can see what is at risk this week without asking each other.