radio station analysis

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Research - Analysis of Radio Stations and Shows

In this assignment I will look at a range of radio stations and programmes looking at various logistics making them what they are.

I will initially look at a range of radio stations and analyse them, breaking them down into target audience, age range of audience, demographics and the social status of the listeners.  I will choose two stations from the BBC and one commercial station.  I have chosen to analyse only one commercial station as two commercial stations within the same region will be fairly similar in style and speech content et cetera.  I have chosen Trent FM due to it being Nottingham’s oldest commercial station whereas other commercial stations in Nottingham such as Heart FM are owned by corporate companies running other stations around the country such as Capital Radio and FXM.

I will also choose three radio programmes, one from a local BBC station, one from a nationwide BBC station and a radio show from a pirate station.  I will look at presentation of the show, speech content of the presenters, target audience and the overall style.

For the analysis of radio stations I have chosen BBC Radio One and Four.  This way I will have looked at each end of the scale-Radio One being quite upbeat and geared towards a younger audience and Radio Four being partly political and partly artistic-but not in a modern arts way.

When analysing a commercial station I will look at 96 Trent FM.  I will no longer analyse Heart FM.  (Previously 106 Century FM before being bought out by the Chrysler group at the beginning of the year) due to the reasons I mentioned earlier.

For the analysis of radio programmes I have chosen Jo Whiley from BBC Radio One- aired on weekdays at 10-11:45am.  Mick Smith from BBC Radio Nottingham-aired on Sunday mornings at 10-1pm with a news bulletin in-between and Fyber and  Nu Sense from a pirate radio station called Freeze FM-aired on Friday nights at 9-12pm.

BBC Radio One.  97-99FM

The target audience of Radio One is 18-24 year olds.  This is very apparent in all the shows on the station.  Radio One also has a strong student following which is especially recognisable in the afternoons on Scott Mills show.  He has a very interactive audience with phone ins and competitions geared towards that sort of person.  He will often discuss evenings with the listener where he has performed at their university or college.

I think there are exceptions to their target audience in the morning during Chris Moyles’ and Jo whiley’s shows.  Their listeners are slightly older, on their way to work or listening whilst at work.  Jo Whiley runs a daily competition called Staff Wars where two people from different industries answer a series of common knowledge questions to compete for the following day’s edition.

Radio One also has specialist shows which are often in the evenings and weekends.  Examples of this are Westwood-strictly Hip-Hop (Friday nights-10-12) and Fabio and Grooverider-strictly Drum and Bass (Friday nights 2-4).  The show changes drastically throughout the day to include all types of people’s ages and interests.  Throughout the day it is easy to listen to and tends to get more upbeat as it goes through to the evening.

Radio One also involve themselves with media events happening throughout the year which will also promote audience figures and widen the range of their audience.  They are involved with major festivals such as Glastonbury and Creamfields and host their shows on location at the time of the event.

Radio One also hold their own festival called One Big Weekend.  A free festival held in different parts of the country each year.  Tickets are given away by the presenters in the designated location of the festival a week prior to the event. The fact that the festival changes location every year reinforces the range of the demographics.

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The demographics of Radio One are nationwide and not segregated to one area of the country unlike a station like Trent FM.  This has much to do with the frequency of the station.  A radio station that is easily obtained everywhere is much more likely to have a nationwide audience, (not including BBC’s local stations) whereas if somebody living in London wanted to listen to Trent FM, they would have to listen via the internet or Digital Audio Band.

Radio One are all responsible for a scheme called One Life frequently advertised on Radio One and BBC One and Two. ...

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