News Traffic Assistant Duties

News traffic assistants monitor broadcast schedules.Businessman and female assistant working on laptop image by Vladimir Melnik from Fotolia.com

Because TV and radio stations are responsible for producing a large amount of content, significant coordination between the programming and sales departments is required to keep up with the schedule. To assist in meeting the station's contractual and regulatory obligations, a news traffic assistant is assigned to guarantee that the directions of its advertisers are being followed.

Scheduling

Broadcast radio and TV stations are sustained by charging advertisers to run commercials. Advertisers are guaranteed that their ads will either be shown at specific times or that they will be run a certain number of times per day. News traffic assistants schedule these commercials. Traffic assistants also maintain the filing system for storing the commercials that will played. An assistant contacts advertisers or ad agencies when there is a last-minute programming change that requires a commercial's slot to be moved. For example, if an ad is pre-empted because of an emergency broadcast, he might suggest alternative time slots with equivalent value or might negotiate compensation for running a commercial at a less desirable time.

The FCC requires broadcast radio and TV stations to keep logs showing what has been played. These logs can be used as evidence if a charge of indecency is later filed. Additionally, there are public service announcements that must be run that need to be documented. The news traffic assistant tracks content and logs programming into a computerized record system, and distributes a copy of the daily schedule to on-air personnel and show producers. The news traffic assistant acts as a legal representative of the station attesting to the accuracy of the records.

Traffic assistants review records of commercials and shows to verify that all information required for the logs is present. When documentation is incomplete, the assistant contacts the station sales team to review the sponsor, the requested and actual times of broadcast, and the commercial content. If the station is part of a network, the assistant might also research questions regarding network announcements. She performs audits regularly to verify that an updates were entered into the reporting system correctly, and corrects any mistakes that are uncovered.