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Commercial Radio

The main goal for commercial radio stations is to please listeners and to make money.

To do this there are a lot of things they must do:

To make money, commercial stations usually try their best to promote other companies in the area. This can be done through a company paying for advertisement, or a company putting on a competition that can be run through the station.

Most of the stations are available to be listened to on a number of platforms, usually on FM, Digital Radio and Online.

The stations which are on FM are monitored by Ofcom, so strict rules and regulations are set that a radio station must follow. If these rules are broken, a radio station could lose their license to broadcast.

Community Radio

Community Radio stations are usually run by volunteers from a local area so therefore have a much wider range of music.

Small community stations can be listened to Online, but bigger stations can be found on FM too.

Community stations don't usually have target audiences, however most of the programming on them have audience targets.

For example, a younger presenter will most likely target their show to younger people whilst an older presenter would most likely target their show to older people.

Stations which are online are not usually monitored so can broadcast as they wish. This includes programming which has explicit content in it. (However they usually do try to stick to normal broadcasting rules)

If you look on a community radio station's schedule you will usually see a wide range of shows, which include a wide range of music.

Some examples are:

Radio Northumberland

Start the Weekend- Targeted at young people between the ages of 13-25, playing mainly new music which has recently entered the charts.

New Wave With Newman- Targeted at older the older generation, playing a wide range of music from the 70s.

Martins House Party- Plays classic club music in a mix from many decades, especially the 90s. It is targeted at people between the ages of 20-40.

NE1fm

The Jess Hodge Show- Plays a variety of songs from the 60s and 70s and specialises in Indie, Rock and promotes local music.

The Lunchtime Special (Friday)- A full range of songs for 2 hours from the 60s-Now, targeted at all ages and both genders.

Types of Music-Based Programming

There are many types of music programmes within radio.

Some types are Pop, Dance, Rock, Country, Easy Listening, Hip-Hop/Rap, R&B/Soul, Reggae and many more.

Most radio stations will choose one of these genres and stick to it, and that way they will attract the kind of listener that they want.

Some stations put on special programmes at certain times to suit when different people can listen. For example, BBC Radio 1's Dan & Phil are on during a Sunday evening as that is when most young people are at home doing homework and want something on in the background.

The reason for these special programmes are to get more people to listen, and if someone likes one programme, they are more likely to listen to more on programming on that station.

There are many types of special programmes that radio stations broadcast to try and draw listeners in.

The most common type is a Top 40. When most people think of a Top 40 they think of the show on BBC Radio 1 which shows the most downloaded tracks of that week; but a Top 40 can be done on any type of music station whether it be Rock, Reggae or even Classical. They don't have to be the most downloaded tracks, most radio station's just pick 40 well known tracks from a genre and play them out.

Another special type of programme is Guess The Year. Many radio stations do this to try and get listeners involved with the show. They usually use social media to their advantage, as if people are commenting on for example, a station's Facebook status then it will appear on other people's news feed and will therefore make others want to listen too. Bauer Media, a company who own a number of commercial radio stations use the show The Top Ten at Ten as their version of Guess The Year to try and draw listeners in.

How to Make a Specialist Music Programme Work

The very best music programmes are the ones which draw in the most listeners, however to achieve this programmes must do a few things...

For a special music programme to be good it needs to have the right kind of music to fit the target audience. For example, a Classical station needs to play classic music and not something like Rock.

It also needs to have a good schedule for the music. For example, playing 3 songs by the same artist is not a good idea, so having a mix of music which flow after each other nicely is always good.

It needs to be on at a good time. For example, having a kids Disney music show on at 11pm is not a good idea as most kids will be in bed, it would be better to have it on during the daytime or early evening.

If it is a specialist music show which requires a presenter, they need to talk around the music subject. This is important as it's a special show and people want to hear facts about musicians being played, not what the presenter had for breakfast.

A few examples of really good music based programmes are:

In The Mix with Martin Humes, Capital FM- This is scheduled every Friday and Saturday night from 7-10pm. They describe this programme as 'The warm up to your night out'. What makes this programme really good is it can be heard when most people are about to go out, and it plays music that people will hear in night clubs and bars later on that night. Also using a celebrity as the presenter draws more people in to listen as they know who he is.

The Wind Down with Jenny Francis, Heart Radio- This can be heard every Thursday-Sunday evening. This is a really great show as it attracts a listener that has had a hard day and is wanting some chilled out music to help them relax. As it's a show which is later on they are more laid back about what music they can play so they do not have to stick exactly to the list of songs created by the programme director, this means they can take requests from listeners which makes more people want to listen as there is more chance their song will be played.

How Radio Programmes Are Made

Radio Programmes are not just done of the top of people's heads, they are planned out so that presenter knows exactly what they are doing for every part of their show. Basic music programmes that you will hear on common commercial radio stations use a radio show format clock to plan out a show. This enables the presenter/producer to plan out when different sections of their show will happen including music, news, ad breaks competitions etc.

Most radio stations that play adverts will have 3 sections of adverts that last approximately 5 minutes, and come on every 20 minutes. Ad breaks are done like this so that the listener is not having to listen to adverts for too long, but it is enough so that the right amount of adverts are being played out to make the radio station enough money.

Traffic reports are usually done straight after adverts. This is to draw the listener back in and make them listen as the majority of people want to listen to how the traffic is. It is also done like this so if people have switched off their radio in the car because of the adverts, it could come back on and make them listen again if their automatic traffic news setting is switched on.

News is usually at the top of the hour, however some stations will do news every half an hour or in the middle of the hour. For example, BBC Radio 1's news programme Newsbeat is on every half past the hour.

Radio stations work in teams to make a station the best listening experience for a target audience. In most radio programmes, a presenter is there pushing buttons and talking between songs. A lot of people think that is where stops however they’re wrong.

A radio producer is usually allocated to a show, and they are there to help plan out what happens on the show, organise special guests, negotiate competitions and sometimes handle inbound and outbound calls to the show. They are a key part to a radio show as it takes a lot of the weight off a presenters shoulders, and gives them more time to plan out exactly what they are going to say in the next link.

A lot of listeners believe that for news reports on radio, it’s just one person writing a script and reading it out and in some aspects they’re right, however there is a lot more to it. Radio news is created in news teams, made up of different members who perform specific roles. News teams include a leader who decides what the best thing to report is that day, and ensures it is presented in the best way possible. There is a standard reporter who will go out and record people’s voices, and then come back and edit what they have recorded in the studio. There are also scriptwriters who sketch out a basic script of what needs to be reported and gives it to a presenter to read out. The news presenter will then edit the script into a way that sounds good to them to read out, and reads it out usually live on air.

It sounds easy, however news changes all of the time, so a news script that has been worked on for an hour could have to be completely changed if a breaking news story comes in.

Radio stations also have a lot of off-air peoples who work in a range of areas. First is the management who decide the music that is going to be played out, reviews on-air content and gives feed back to people creating it on how they can make it better. Like any management team, they decide who is hired and who is fired in the radio station, and the way most radio stations work, if you’re not the best of the best, you will not be there for long.

There are also people who work in sales, both for advertising and for events. One part of a sales team will work with local companies who wish to have adverts about their business on the radio station. Other people will work with other companies to sort out how to get the radio station advertised, and how to draw more people in to listen. This is done through posters, TV adverts, outside broadcasts etc. Other members of a sales team will deal with local events that are taking place that either a radio station wants to broadcast from, or an event that wants a presenter to make an appearance to.

There are lots of other members of a radio station who deal with making food and beverage, promotion, reception and many other individual’s that help make people’s jobs easier.

How Music is Chosen for Radio

Music is usually chosen for radio by the a company that owns a radio station. An example of this is Bauer Media Group chooses all of the music they want played on all of their commercial radio stations across the UK. Once the music has been chosen, each individual radio station chooses the order in which they play the music. This is done by the programme controller of the station. There are strict guidelines that they must follow when choosing the order to play tracks, and if this is done wrong the company who chose the music has the power to over ride the programme controller. A presenter is then given the list of music and must play it in the order it has been chosen in. They will occasionally be offered a 1 or 2 track leeway where they can choose their own track to play or take a request from a listener.

The way a company chooses the best music to play on their station is usually done through surveys taken by listeners. Surveys can be done a number of ways, whether it's online, on the street, inviting listeners into a station to discuss the music they want played. usually when surveys are carried out they usually rate other things such as what the presenter's chat is like, what they think of the news programming etc.

Radio stations also take listening figures into consideration when choosing music. They will look to see when has the most listeners and decide what music they play using this. For example, if a special music programme is getting more listeners than a drive time show, a radio station will most likely play more music from that special music show in their drive time show.

https://soundcloud.com/user9656765/smooth-radio-guess-the-year-at

Smooth Radio, Guess The year Intro

Dan & Phil, BBC Radio 1

Unit 44- Music Based Programming

Tracklist, BBC Radio 1

Different Types and Styles

of Music-Based Programming

Listener Survey, Bauer Media Group

https://soundcloud.com/benbookless/news-bulletin-3pm-3rd-february-2014-ucb-uk

News Bulletin, U.C.B U.K

As commercial radio stations are there to please their listeners, there is not usually a wide variety of music which gets played.

A radio station will usually stick to a certain type of music to attract the kind of listener which they want.

Some examples are:

Capital FM- They play very up to date music, and tend to play the same songs over and over again during a day. Their variety gauge is 2%.

Metro Radio- Have more of a variety of music, which stretches from very up to date, to songs from the 90s that people haven't heard for a long time. Their variety gauge is 39%.

Magic AM- Uses AM instead of FM and plays a vider variety of music to attract an older listener. Their variety gauge is 39%.

All figures taken from comparemyradio.com and were correct on 10/09/14.

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