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.

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.

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 1^st 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.

Varieties of different forms and style of radio news reporting

Bulletins 
News bulletin is a range of different story with audio and interviews, the purpose of this is to allow the audience to view the full picture of the story. News bulletin, also acknowledged as breaking news or special report is also a current event that newsreaders are allowed to pause a scheduled programming or current news in order to report its details. For television, on many occasions, news bulletin is used after the news network has already reported on this story. When a story has not been reported on earlier, the graphic and phrase 'Just In' is every so often used as an alternative. It’s also assigned to the most important story of the moment or a story that is being covered live. It could be a story that is purely of wide interest to viewers and has little effect otherwise.

Here's an example of a news bulletin
http://youtu.be/Dx-Q-a0RNqY

On radio, the procedure of a news bulletin story is slightly the same, though some different considerations are made for the medium. For example, a breaking news theme is essential by default to have a theme song that creates tension for the viewers so that they are aware that there is breaking news, this is to be used only for the purpose of true breaking news or bulletins. For local events non-stop reporting may be forced, or else the station may delay until they have a reporter at the scene and will promise more facts of the event as they become available.

Headline
Headline news is the top line of each story of the day, it's role is to give a snapshot of the key story of the day, A headline's aim is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. The purpose of a headline is to attract audience and to reassure the listeners to keep listening.  In printing advertising, the headline is considered to be the most vital part because it invites the readers into the advertisement, however in radio, the headline is recognised to be the signficant reason in the effectiveness of radio news.

The link below is an example of an headline:
http://youtu.be/1pQymiyw9Oc

News Programme
A news programme otherwise known as news show, or newscast is a frequently arranged radio or television programme that reports current happenings. News is reported in a series of specific stories that are presented by one or more news readers. The newsreader role is to provide the audience vital information of the story that is being reported. A news programme can also include live or recorded interviews by field reporters, expert opinions, opinion poll results and sometimes editorial content.

The news programme is the duration of the whole thing, it's longer as it gives us more detail of the stories. This is done to give us more depth of the story.

http://youtu.be/Un4jh7xfaCc

Copy Only
Copy only is when the news reader is reading a story, it's role is to try and get the story across to the audience so that they are aware of what's happening in the world.

http://youtu.be/6NWleJNfO0g

Copy with audio
This is when the newsreader reads the main facts of the story, however it then has a sound clip of a person speaking about the subject to evidence it. The reason they have this is to include more depth and give it more life and emotion to the story.

http://youtu.be/dqmHgGg7W_M

Voicers
This is when the main news reader is giving the information about the subject, then it cuts to another news correspondent who has additional facts about the topic. This is done to break up the pace of the news.
http://youtu.be/Un4jh7xfaCc

Vox Pop
The meaning of Vox Pop is simply ‘the voice of people’. This is most often achieved by means of stopping people in the street and asking them a question which is recorded in video or audio. With vox pop you have to be quick and firm, the availability of minutes you will have will be at least three minutes to ask the person the question, due to the fact it is being taken on the street; the interviewee may urgently need to be somewhere else so as a journalist you have to make sure there is a minimum of three questions and you have to ensure they are all open questions, this is vital in order for you to
be able to edit the opinions you want to keep and the ones you don’t need.

Wraps
News wrap is an audio piece with the news wrapped around it, this is added to provide more information  and to maintain the listener's attention.

A wrap can also mean a piece that is a summary of news lines or elements in a story.

Live Cross
A live cross is where a reporter has just finished he/she's part and passes it onto another reporter to provide us more facts of the story. A live cross is done to give us the immediacy of what's happened and most important to give the news of what's going on at that particular time.
http://youtu.be/yyTJiGXV-6A

Two Way
A Two Way is a format of news report in which the newsreader interviews a reporter who is generally out in the field and at the scene to get the information we need from the main story. In an illustrated two way, the reporter introduces clips of audio if the news is on radio or otherwise video if it’s being reported on television.
This is also when the newsreader is leading in the story with the sound giving us specific vital details in the form of a live cross.