Tuesday 7 February 2012

How are radio stations different?

These broadcasts are completely different as they never carry out similar subjects the same way, for example; each stations covered the story of Steven Lawrence death as it was huge news, and each station carried it out In an informative way but with completely different styles. This is due to the fact that each station target different audience age and people and uses dissimilarity language to connect with their audience range, for example Radio 4 would be aiming to get the story across to the people on the C1 – C3 on the demographic scale, whilst Radio1 would be focusing on aiming at people at D on the demographic scale who would tend to be students.


Radio 1, Key 103 and Radio 4 each carried out the Steven Lawrence story differently; with Radio 1 they added interview’s with the victim’s loved ones who knew him personally to show the emotional side of the story, this is done to allow the audience to connect with the story and ensure they remain listening because the more emotional the topic gets, the more it makes you want to keep listening.

Radio 4 also covered their story in a diverse way via an immense extent of formal language and vocabulary that was included as their intended audience rate C1 to C3 on the demographic scale, also the style of the subject was hard news due to the story itself and the station it was aired on. As a whole the maximum amount of the topic was at least 5 minutes long.  

With Key 103, the story was covered with a long bulletin and a wrap, also the language used was a mixture of both formal and informal, however the vocabulary used was rather informal, whist on that note; the presenter’s tone of voice was also really sympathetic which instantly tells the audience that the story is very emotional and judging by the reporter's tone of voice, it shows that she may have been in her early 30’s. The purpose of this was to match the station’s target audience. The subject was also brief but informative and as duration it was at least two minutes long.


These broadcasts may cover the same stories; however they are covered differently as they all aim at varied audience.

Saturday 4 February 2012

Primary, Secondary audience and tertiary

Primary: Primary audience is the main body of viewers, which may also be known as the target audience. People who may be classed as primary audience would be Doctors, Teachers, Lawyers and others, whilst the secondary audience maybe people in careers such as Hairdressing, Sales Assistants, essentially common people who aren't in the scale of C1 TO C3 of the demographic scale would also be mainly students. 


Secondary audience: secondary audience are viewers who fall outside the demographic scale of C1 to C3 but still listens to the station, however they make up a large enough percentage of the test audience to skew the statistics if not counted for. Secondary audience could also mean when someone is trying to introduce a station to another person who is unaware of it.


The difference between a pimary audience and a secondary audience is, ultimately a primay audience  is the key audience the station is addressed at and the Secondary audience are people other than the intended audience who will also be listening to the station due to someone who is already an audience, this person could be a friend, daughter, and so on.


Tertiary audience: is when a person is only listening to the station because they are familiar with the guest that is on. This could also be a friend, sister, a particular celebrity and others.

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Investigating the style of Absolute Radio

 
Absolute Radio is one of the UK’s three ‘Independent National Radio’ stations.


Absolute Radio was originally named Virgin Radio, however on 1st September 2008, it was confirmed that the station would be renamed as Absolute Radio at the end of the month.  The station re-branded to its existing name at 7.45am on the 29 of September 2008. The station is centered in London and plays common rock music. The station currently broadcasts on ‘Medium Wave and DAB across the UK, on 105.8FM in London, SKY (Channel 0107), Virgin Media (Channel 915), Freeview, Freesat, and also Talk Talk TV (Channel 620). Absolute Radio is also accessible in other parts of the world through Satellite, Cable as well as on the internet.


The station targets audience aged 25 – 44 year old; also the station itself provides a combination of albums and chart music from the past 25 years attempting to bring the 80’s music back into our century.

The station’s original team of presenters was Russ Williams, Neil Francis, Richard Skinner, Mitch Johnson, Tommy Vance, Jonathan Coleman, Nick Abbot and Wendy Lloyd. However, since Virgin Radio ended back in 2008, the station immediately casted new staffs including a new editor, Broadcast Journalists and presenters.

The current presenters are: Christian O’Connell, Ian Wright, Dave Gorman, Frank Skinner, Leona Graham and lots more.


Absolute Radio covers stories that includes gigs for bands (mainly rock bands), award shows, and the latest news from football which presenter Ian Wright tends to be the reporter of the topic. 

Most of the presenters have a really strong cockney accent from east London and straight away you are able to tell where the station is based at without having to research it. The language used tends to be informal, some of the presenters used words such as ‘Croickey’, ‘Tired’ and even Horny’ the purpose of this is to match the age range they are targeting and in order for them to be able to understand their humor.






Types of broadcasters

Public Service
Public Service is paid for by the public with a license fee of £120.00 per year. The radio station that uses public service is the BBC, they have to relate to an extensive audience, it is why there are many diverse BBC sectors that cater to this. Though they are different radio stations, however they still have to meet requests for a varied audience and also report on local news. The communications controller 'OfCom' requires that specific television and radio broadcasters must meet certain requirements as part of their license to airing. All of the BBC television and radio stations have a public service responsibility including those that broadcast digitally, furthermore; all stations broadcast on terrestrial analogue are obligated to deliver public service programming as they can be watched freely almost anywhere nationwide.

Commercial

Commercial broadcasting is primarily founded on the practice of airing radio advertisements and television advertisements for income. This is in distinction to public broadcasting which obtains government sponsorship and avoids most or all paid advertisement.  An example of this is Capital FM. They are sponsored through advertisements and companies who allow them to promote their products. They also select their advertisements depending on their target audience so that the companies and the radio station profit in a positive way. Lots of commercial radio stations are local or regional. Limited are restricted news bulletin.

Community

Community radio is a radio service a third ideal of radio broadcasting in calcualation to commercial and public broadcasting, community stations work for geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast news that is current and applicable to a local and particular audience, however; it is often ignored by commercial or mass-media broadcasters. Community radio stations are ran, owned and influenced by the communities they serve, they are usually non-profit and offer a device to allow individuals, groups and communities to express their own stories and share experiences.
An example of a community radio station is Salford City Radio. They are limited to one town/city which is local. They are Restricted to local news, they  have a Low budget and a minor news team. They are also Commercially funded and perhaps funded by the local council.


Small Scale 
College radio which may also be known as campus radio, university radio and student radio is a category of radio station that is run by the students of the college. Programming may be exclusively by students or may contain programmers from the broader community in which the station is established, however; sometimes college radios are functioned for the purpose of training professional radio employees, occasionally with the intention of broadcasting of educational programming whilst other radio station exists to offer an alternative to commercial broadcasting or government broadcasters.
College radios are examples of small – scale radios which broadcasts to only one location, A building etc. They are locally funded by themselves or by promoters. They have Low funding and possibly even without a news team. They also have restricted news or probably no news.

Local

This initially means broadcasting to a local area, an example of this is the BBC where one of the stations only airs in Manchester.  They also only report Local and national stories.


Regional
Regional means the station will broadcast to a larger area, i.e. the North West and examples for regional stations are Smooth Radio, Real Radio and others.
These stations provide news featuring Local regional stories that may have happened in Scotland; their stories are local, however they are regional together.  

National

This means the stations are Broadcasted around the whole country of England, Wales, and Scotland. An example of stations that do this is the BBC Radio. They only cover national and international stories; however this might also be local but regional at the same time.

Satellite, Cable and Internet
Examples of satellite and cable would be The Hits, Smash hits and others. Internet radios include stations such as DEFJAY FM, R&B FM and so on. Both satellite and internet report Stories that are constant and repeated throughout the day but aren’t updated regularly, however they are up-to-date; National and International stories are also included.