These have been in use for a while -- in 1996/1997, the radio station I worked for had Satellite clocks that we would use to get into and out of baseball and football games -- ideally, our schedules would match a hard break on the clock, and we could just "bump" out of one song and into the program, but, you'd sometimes have to use fill music, the weather, or, anything else you could get your hands on to make the time work.
Even then, almost everything was automated; we had Harris consoles where we could program the 'next' event by hand (and then a button to return control back to the Harris). Today, the sporting events are sending cue tones for commercial breaks and top-of-hour legal ID's, negating the need for some 16 year old kid to be making minimum wage listening to baseball and doing his/her homework at night.
An interesting look into the world of public radio programming and time constraints. While the writeup on the linked page is nice, the podcast itself is filled with a lot more information.
Even then, almost everything was automated; we had Harris consoles where we could program the 'next' event by hand (and then a button to return control back to the Harris). Today, the sporting events are sending cue tones for commercial breaks and top-of-hour legal ID's, negating the need for some 16 year old kid to be making minimum wage listening to baseball and doing his/her homework at night.