Radio assignment
In this assignment I will be talking about the different types of speech packages and how they are used. I will be talking about the differences between public, private and community radio stations and how they operate. I will be talking about different demographics and psycho-graphics and it helps radio stations to produce content that will get lots of views.
Public radio stations
Public radio stations purpose is to inform, entertain and educate the public. All public radio stations are funded by the public through license fee's. Examples of public radio stations would be the different BBC radio stations.
The BBC can afford to spend a lot of money on its broadcasts because of its public funding. Because of this they can access more resources than a community or private radio station. The BBC has a lot more people working on the different speech packages compared to other types of radio stations.
Private radio stations
Private radio stations main purpose is to make money from advertising. Because they are not funded by a licensing fee like the BBC they must make there own money through advertisements. A private radio station will usually be more narrow in what they broadcast compared to the BBC who have a number of different radio stations producing a wide range of content for different demographics and psycho graphics. Because a private radio station must get its on funding they usually rely on sponsors and add revenue to keep the station going.
Planet rock is a private radio station which focuses on people who are fans of rock music and the other sub genres surrounding it. They play advertisements that will appeal to their audience whether it be new albums or the latest songs available on itunes.
As you can see they are playing the music that is targeting their audience of people who like rock music. They show the audience what songs are next and what was previously on. They have a rather up beat loud music que which introduces planet rock and says it's "the home of rock". To keep things interesting for viewers they do specials for example they are doing a acoustic hour.
Community radio stations
Community radio stations main aim is to appeal to a local audience. They will mainly tackle local stories as opposed to national news. Different news stories will take priority depending on how relevant they are to the local area. A lot of the guests will be people from the local area and a lot of advertisements will be targeted to the local area.
CVFM is a community radio for Middlesbrough. Almost all of there stories are about something happening in the local area. and example being the story of a local doctor going and helping victims in the Nepalese. Another story being about potential pollution in lakes.
As you can see on the front page there are stories mainly about the local area and making people aware of what there local area. The top story is about charity funds raising after the last episode of benefits street. On the live station at the time they had a guest talking about how you could donate mosques all over the world through their platform. The founder of the website and the project was a man from the local area which gave it some relevance to the local area
Another example of a news story based in Middlesbrough. As you can see all of the stories are targeted toward the local area.
There are a plenty of different speech packages, documentary format, radio drama and the different ways to present news through the media. There is the more formal way which is just a list of the different stories in a short concise way with a focus on formality and clear speech (No slang, little to no accent) from the presenter. The other popular form of news presentation is a less formal presentation but not exactly informal. Lots of music and ques are used. The presenters are usually quite bright and vibrant sounding with an up beat feel to the speech package.
As you can see on the front page there are stories mainly about the local area and making people aware of what there local area. The top story is about charity funds raising after the last episode of benefits street. On the live station at the time they had a guest talking about how you could donate mosques all over the world through their platform. The founder of the website and the project was a man from the local area which gave it some relevance to the local area
Another example of a news story based in Middlesbrough. As you can see all of the stories are targeted toward the local area.
Different speech packages
The BBC World Service is a very formal news radio station which tells news from around the world. They have someone who doesn't have a thick accent and is very clear in the way they speak so people from other countries can better understand what the presenter is saying. The speech package will have a lack of music or if it does it wont be very loud and will be designed to not attract to much attention.
TFM radio also does news packages except they do them a little differently to the BBC World Service. This radio station is a lot more up beat with a abundance of music ques and background music. TFM radio uses vox pops which the world service doesn't. This form of presenting news tends to talk about local news or news relevant to the UK, they tend to go into more detail on a story whether it be with a vox pops an interview or just reading out statistics.
How does the audience effect the radio station
The audience for a radio station defines what that radio station is and what it produces. A radio station must know its demographic as well as its psych graphic. You must target your content to the audience otherwise they wont listen to it and will lose interest. For example planet rock knows that its target audience are people who like rock music, they have a rather wide age range as they play a lot of different types of rock music from different eras. If planet rock started playing pop music they would alienate their audience and potentially lose it. TFM radio is targeted at people of the age from 24-40 however depending on the different sub stations depends on the target audience, for instance TFM is aimed at young people who aren't necessarily high class. It targets at this audience by being pretty informal and by the types of news they present.
Live/pre recorded
Nearly every radio broadcast is done live however there are some exceptions. Documentaries, quiz shows and radio dramas are conventionally pre recorded and then played. News packages are usually done live but if there is a split transmission for different ares then there will be on pre recorded package and one done live playing at the same time to different places. News broadcasts are normally done live so they can talk about the most recent new stories, if it was pre recorded they would keep on having to add new stories as the come out.
Contributes
Contributes are interview guests, correspondents, politicians, experts on the subject and reporters. All of these serve different purposes but they are all for the same goal of enhancing the speech package with more information and other peoples opinions on different subjects. Having a experts opinion on a topic is a good addition to the production because it informs people more and makes sure that the subject is talked properly by someone who knows what they are talking about.Actuality
Actuality is all of the different sound effects and sound ques. These are normally played at the beginning of the show as well as the beginning of the different segments of the show. they usually say the names of the radio station and the different presenters. The idea of these sound bites are to start the show off with something that draws in the listeners attention. Sometimes you will find the actuality noises to be things that you would find on the scene, so if it was in an office for example you might hear the sound of pen to paper or the sound of computer keys being tapped.Ethics and regulation.
There are quite a few different things that producers must be aware of when they are making there news radio broadcasts in terms of ethics and making sure that they stick to regulation so they arent reported and face consequences. Producers must make sure they make sure peoples private lifes are kept private, have accurate information, stay away from encouraging stereotypes and to make sure people get a fair representation.Privacy
Radio producers must make sure that the privacy of certain issues are kept. A lot of privacy issues can be met when talking about crimes committed, you have to make sure that the family member surrounding the crime are kept private so they don't receive any sort of abuse.Stereotyping/Fair representation
Radio producers must be careful not to indorce or encourage stereotypes as they are not seen as a fair representation of a group of people. People can be easily offended by misconceptions and stereotypes. To avoid stereotypes you shouldn't focus to much on one group or have people from that group interviewed how their opinion on the subject.Unbiased
A producer must make sure that no information sounds biased whether it be by biased to a certain political standing or to make it look different to how it actually is. You must make sure that your presenters wont present the information in a biased way and wont be influenced by there own opinion. The news needs to be impartial, it needs to present the facts as they are and not be effected by anything else.Accuracy
A producer has to make sure that the information is accurate, incorrect information can lead to a number of different problems like reinforcing stereotypes, coming off as biased. In general giving false information to the audience is a bad idea as the news' purpose is to present facts around the world and if they are false then it renders the station incompetent.
Offcom
The offcom's regulations for radio forbid the ones above if you break one of those you will receive some sort of punishment which will depend on the severity as well as quantity of the offence. Depending on the severity of the offence offcom could take your license away which would prevent you from working in that sector ever again and would put a black mark on you as an employee. In some extreme cases violation can lead to prison time.
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