# A broadcast timer for studios, radio, and live shows Segment countdowns, hard-out warnings, and a running order every screen in the studio can open as a link — with control from the gallery, not the desk. Broadcast lives and dies by the clock: segments have lengths, breaks have hard starts, and the show ends when the schedule says — not when the conversation does. A broadcast timer makes that discipline visible to the people on air, so hitting the out is a glance rather than a producer counting fingers through the glass. MaestroTimer covers this in the browser. Talent-facing countdowns, a [running order](https://maestrotimer.com/articles/run-of-show) of named segments, silent cues from the gallery, and a list of every screen that is actually receiving — on studio hardware you already have. ## Segment timing as a running order A show rundown maps directly onto a room: one timer per segment, each carrying a name, a speaker, and notes. The structure: - Fixed segments get countdowns — the interview is eight minutes, and the display says how much of it is left. - Open segments count up — a phone-in or a developing story shows elapsed time instead of a deadline. - Linked timers advance the rundown automatically: when the segment ends, the next clock starts. - A scheduled timer starts at a set time of day — useful for counting down to air, or for a break that must begin exactly on the hour. ## What the talent sees The viewer is a clean fullscreen countdown for any talent-facing screen: the monitor under the camera, a tablet on the radio desk, a display in the voice booth. Open the link, go fullscreen, done. Wrap-up thresholds do the warning work. As a segment runs down, the display changes its appearance in stages you define — the presenter sees thirty seconds coming without an earpiece call. When a cue needs words, the gallery sends a message and it appears next to the countdown: bold, colored, or flashing, sized to the urgency. ## Control from the gallery The controller view runs on any device in the gallery or control room. Start, pause, and time adjustments propagate to every open screen immediately — the studio, the booth, the producer's own phone. When the running order changes mid-show, adjust the live timer or re-order what has not aired yet; every display follows. And because the timer runs in the room rather than on any one machine, a screen that reloads reconnects to the current state instead of losing the plot. ## The radio case: script and hard breaks Radio timing is the same discipline with fewer screens: a script segment gets a countdown matched to its read length, a music bed gets its own clock, and the top-of-hour break gets a scheduled timer that starts itself. One viewer on the desk shows the presenter everything they need; the producer controls it from the next room. For a self-op studio, the presenter keeps the controller open in a second tab and taps between links. ## Prove the screens are live before air The pre-air check is built in: the room's live connections view lists every attached device. If the studio monitor, the booth display, and the gallery screen are on the list, they are receiving — verified from one seat, before the red light. ## FAQ ### How does talent see time remaining without an earpiece call? A viewer link on any talent-facing screen shows the countdown, and wrap-up thresholds change its appearance as the segment runs down — the warning is visual and automatic. ### Can a break start exactly on the hour? Yes. Schedule a timer to start at a set time of day and it begins on its own; the displays follow without anyone pressing start. ### Does this feed into vMix or OBS for an on-air graphic? Yes — those tools accept a web page as an input, so the viewer link works as a browser source and the countdown can be part of the program output. ### What happens if a studio screen reloads mid-show? It reconnects and shows the current state. The timer runs in the room, not on the screen, so no single device owns the clock. **Put the clock where the talent looks** — MaestroTimer runs in the browser: a running order of named segments, talent-facing countdowns, silent cues from the gallery, and a live list of every connected screen. [Try MaestroTimer](https://maestrotimer.com)