# HPR Branding

## The Intro

### Duration

It will always be 30 seconds long and in some edge cases may be slightly longer.
The following table will help put that into context.
It gives the percentage of the show the intro takes related to the length of the shows.

      1.7% of an average show (29 minutes 30 seconds)
      0.1% of our longest show (7 hours 27 minutes)
    187.5% of our shortest show (16 seconds)

### Breakdown

### Generation

The intro is generated by the [process\_episode.bash](https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr-tools/src/branch/main/workflow/process_episode.bash#L1388-L1391) script and uses the [say.php](https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_hub/src/branch/main/cms/say.php) file to generate the data.

The text is [created](https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr-tools/src/branch/main/workflow/process_episode.bash#L1427) using [piper test to speech](https://github.com/rhasspy/piper).
It was previously created using [espeak](https://espeak.sourceforge.net/), and we are open to [suggestions](https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_hub/issues/new) on how to improve it.

The text is played over the HPR Theme Music

### Theme Music Credits

The background is an arrangement by [Maestraccio](https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_website/src/branch/main/www/theme/intro-ak-Maestraccio-cc-by-4.0.mp3) which is released under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license, of the [HPR Theme](), composed by [slick0](https://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0042.html) which has [No Copyright](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applied.

### Message

To effectively communicate an event it's important to convey the answers to **Who?**, **What?**, **When?**, **Where?**, and **Why?**

> The Five Ws is a checklist used in journalism to ensure that the lead contains all the essential points of a story. As far back as 1913, reporters were taught that the lead should answer these questions about the situation being reported.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws)


#### What?, When?, Where?

The first sentence is always **This is Hacker Public Radio episode (show id) for "(day of week)" the "(day number)" of "(month and year). **

Saying the name of the show at the beginning of an episode is called establishing [brand recognition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_awareness#Brand_recognition).
It is standard for podcasts, TV and Radio shows as well as on broadcast networks, not to mention the pre-rolls in a movie.

We started to do it because some of our Visually Impaired users appreciated knowing what show is playing.
Now the same reason can be applied to everyone as the use of visual controlled [User interfaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface) have diminished.
Most people control the playlist with headset or voice controls.

Saying the show id, and date is common where there are a lot of episodes eg: news or weather shows. 
It is often skipped where the content is sufficient to identify the episode, eg "the last episode of the foo bar baz podcast, or the last Saturday Night Live"

We include the show id and date to allow the listener to refer to the episode easily.
As we have literally thousands of shows, we need to help people identify which show they are now listening to, so that it can be easily shared, or commented on.

#### What? Why?

We always include **Today's show is entitled. (title)**.
If the episode is part of a series then we also include **It is part of the series (series name)**.
We always include the show **(synopsis)**.

This tells the listener what the show is about.
It allows them to skip the episode if they wish.
They may wish to do this for many reasons, for example:

- because they are not interested in the topic, 
- they wish to listen to it while in front of a computer to reference the accompanying show notes, 
- they are listening in public and the topic might not be appropriate.

#### Who?

The next part will either be **It is the first show by new host (host name)**, **It is the (multiple of 10)th show of (host name)**, or **It is hosted by (host name)**

We are required by the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license to credit our hosts, so we do.

We think it's important to highlight new hosts especially, so our community we encourage them to continue to contribute.

It's also nice to call out hosts who have been contributing a lot by highlighting each 10th show they send in.

#### Where?

We always include **and is about (minutes)minutes long** to give people an idea of how long the show is.

Normal broadcasts have to fit neatly into a standard TV/Radio Broadcast schedule. 
Many podcasters now follow the same tradition of having episodes of a predictable length. Eg: 30 minutes or an hour.

On HPR, [there is no restriction on how long the show can be](https://hackerpublicradio.org/about.html) so it's desirable to give the listener a way to know how long the episode is so they can plan accordingly.


#### Warning

We always include either **It carries a clean flag** or **It carries an explicit flag**.

This is also common for broadcasts where they are dealing with a topic that may be disturbing to some people.

#### What

We always include **The summary is. (summary)**.

As this also tells the listener what the show is about.

#### License

In the event that the show is not released [CC-BY-SA](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) we include **Todays show is licensed under a (license_long_name) license.**

## Outro

### Theme Music Credits

The background is an arrangement by [Maestraccio](https://repo.anhonesthost.net/HPR/hpr_website/src/branch/main/www/theme/intro-ak-Maestraccio-cc-by-4.0.mp3) which is released under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license, of the [HPR Theme](), composed by [slick0](https://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0042.html) which has [No Copyright](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applied.

Over the music is the following text recorded by [Manon](https://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents/0449.html) which has [No Copyright](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applied.

You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at [hackerpublicradio.org](https://hackerpublicradio.org/).

Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.

If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then click on our contribute link to find out how easy it really is.

Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by [anhonesthost.com](https://anhonesthost.com/), the [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/) and [rsync.net](https://www.rsync.net/).

Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license.

# Discussions about the HPR Theme

- [2023-04 intro](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr3837/index.html#comments)
- [2022-03 Great Intro](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr3553/index.html#comment_3378)
- [2022-03 TTS](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr3461/index.html#comment_3306)
- [2022-03 The TTS voice](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr3461/index.html#comment_3377)
- [2021-11 Theme - was "Possible cause and solution to subscriber attrition(trying again without encryption)"](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2021-November/004327.html)
- [2020-08 the voice](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr3139/index.html#comment_3007)
- [2019-11 Ken's Voice Is Better Than espeak](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2936/index.html#comment_2799)
- [2018-09 HPR Branding](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2018-September/003541.html)
- [2018-09 Accordion outro](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2625/index.html#comment_2493)
- [2018-10 Intro volume](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2651/index.html#comment_2515)
- [2018-10 TTS over intro music](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2651/index.html#comment_2517)
- [2016-02 speech synthesis during intro](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2016-February/002881.html)
- [2015-12 How to check if the intro and outro are added](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2015-December/002795.html)
- [2015-02 Intro and Outro](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2015-February/002515.html)
- [2014-12 Outro Theme](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2014-December/002410.html)
- [2014-12 Bug Fix HPR Intros](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2014-December/002399.html)
- [2014-11 MaryTTS, clipping](https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr1642/index.html#comment_991)
- [2014-11 An HPR Theme Question, And First Time Member](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2014-November/002312.html)
- [2014-02 What's the word on intro and outro clips?]()https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2014-September/002266.html
- [2011-09 HPR Theme](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2011-September/000455.html)
- [2009-06 my eps for HPR and intro](https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2009-June/000084.html)
