The interview questions are designed as two types: structured questions with singular and multiple-choice answers and unstructured open-ended questions allowing interviewees to give rather detailed account of their individual radio-listening habits and music-acquiring behaviours. The former type aims at collecting quantitative data and the latter, qualitative.(how to analyse) The 21 interview questions are categorized into three major sections, i.e. demographic make-up, radio-listening and music-acquisition with a single-question section at the beginning of each interview to identify whether the interviewee is a regular radio listener (‘Have you listened to the radio in the last one week/ten days?’).
Pilot interviews have been conducted to test the quality of the questionnaire. Negative feedbacks have then been used as the basis of revising the related questions before the questionnaire format and content were finalized.
Findings and Discussion
The Demographic Make-up
The projects ended up having 94 valid samples with a fairly balanced 51% male and 49% female interviewees. Over 90% of the interviewees are below the age of 25, of whom 85% are UK students and 60% are Scottish, indicating a very young and locally-based demographic make-up of Stirling University students. 80% of the interviewees are undergraduates, which means that the result of the project is more representative of this group in nature.
Radio-Listening
This section starts out with a comparison of the popularity of different media exposures among Stirling students. The findings show that most respondents are exposed to multiple forms of media. Television appears to be the most popular medium for news/entertainment in general while radio scores the highest as the prime medium on campus, indicating a high penetration rate or radio receivers among students.
In terms of students’ actual radio-listening habits, research findings demonstrate high percentage of ‘today’ and ‘yesterday’ listening behavior (78% all together). Given the random dates on which the interviews took place, the data can be interpreted as a relatively high percentage of daily listeners among the interviewees. Some listeners mentioned a drop in radio-listening on weekends, which implies that radio is more of a week-day medium for students(?). As for radio-listening time band, mornings (46%) and evenings (29%) turn out to be the most favored time band for radio listening. A relatively high percentage of ‘no-fixed time’ listening (28%) shows that radio remains one of the most accessible media among students. Almost half (47%) of the interviewees said that listened to the radio for more than an hour daily showing high time spent for radio.
When asked about the reasons for radio-listening, respondents’ opinions were highly concentrated on ‘good music’ (82%) and ‘good DJs’(47%), while only 27% of the interviewees turn to radio for news and information and 17% for sports coverage. These data show that radio has become primarily an entertainment medium rather that a news or sports medium for Stirling students. During the process of data analysis, answers to the questions of ‘Which station(s) do you listen to?’ and ‘Which are you favorite stations?’ are combined to show both the listenership and listen loyalty of radio stations. The result suggests that Radio One is the most listened to station with also the highest listener loyalty. Local stations show comparatively bigger discrepancies in listenership and loyalty and are generally lower in the latter compared with stations with nation-wide transmission. BBC Scotland shows a limited but balanced listenership and loyalty level (both at 11%).
Four open-ended questions are given in this section concerning favorite radio DJs, radio stations listened to before coming to Stirling, ‘need gap’ on radio-listening and suggestions for radio stations to improve programmes. These questions allow interviewees to elaborate on their habits and preferences of radio listening. The findings are very coherent with previous data of the section. Radio One’s popularity results in there being very few interviewees who did not listen to it before coming to Stirling. Radio presenter and DJs such as Chris Moyles, Sarah Cox and Jo Whiley are the students’ favorites—not surprising at all, they are all from Radio One. Some male and a few female respondents also mentioned the Off the Ball/On the Ball show(s) on Radio Scotland, echoing the balanced listenership and listener loyalty of the station. Furthermore, many respondents hold that there should be ‘less talk’, ‘less ads’ and ‘more and larger variety of music’ on radio stations. Their views seem to suggest that radio should be monotonized into a medium for music and entertainment only. Their non-recognition of radio as an advertising medium shows Stirling students’ little understanding of the economics of radio stations.
Music Acquisition
The research shows that the two major sources for Stirling students to acquire music are CD buying (63% from music shops and 14% online) and CD burning (an inference drawn from 34% borrowing from friends and 23% Internet downloading). HMV and Virgin are the most popular music store followed by Tesco, MVC, Fopp, etc. Only 42% of the interviewees purchased CDs last month and a third of them seldom buy CDs—translating to relatively low percentage of regular CD buyers among Stirling students. Among those who buy CDs, 62% stated that they bought less than three CDs per month. As for the media influence on CD purchasing, radio turns out to be the most influential of all mass media forms with 73% of interviewee recognition, two times the recognition rate of television, which ranked the second.
Conclusion
The research reveals that radio listening is the most predominant form of media exposure among students of UK origin in the University of Stirling due to its high accessibility. Radio One distinguishes itself as the most popular station among Stirling Students, also commanding the highest level of Listener loyalty. Local stations show a lower level of listener loyalty. BBC Scotland has a small but loyalty listenership thanks to its good sports programmes. Radio has established its presence as a medium for music and entertainment but failed to identify itself as a major news and advertising medium among students in the Unviersity of Stirling. The predominant means of music acquisition among Stirling students is through CD purchasing at music stores. Radio demonstrates the strongest influence on music purchasing decisions of Stirling students.
Reflections on the Research Project