radio analysis

BBC Radio 1, since it was set-up has always played chart music and popular music. The target audience for radio 1 is 15-29. The music that they play suites this target audience because people of this age are more involved with the style of music and are the main listeners. Chris Moyles, who is the host of Radio one's breakfast show is possibly the most popular figure of radio one and also suites the target audience. He suites the audience because his show consists of banter and many quiz shows such as 'Celebrity Rasberry' where a contestant calls in and tries to guess which celebrity is blowing a rasberry. This would suit the target audience because the game is silly and quite funny. Another reason why radio 1 is so successful is because they constantly have audience participation, like for example on the breakfast show they have a feature that has people text in their names and then their names are read out in a song called 'Barbara Streisand'. On there second day of the feature they had 15,000 people text in their names. Another reason why they have suited a huge audience is because they keep there news short with the news being broadcast roughly every half an hour in the daytime and two fifteen minute bulletins, one at 12.45 and another at 5.45. This is good because a lot of people prefer shorter news.Whereas on BBC radio 4 there main priority is news and its broadcast constantly throughout the day. Because of this they have lower listening figures and also a much older target audience.
    BBC 6 music, The target audience for Radio 6 is 22-55 year olds. They play many genres of music including: Indie, Classic rock, Punk, Jazz, Hip Hop and classic dance. These genres of music suit this target audience because these genres of music they were being brought up to in the 80's and 90's. Another reason why it reaches this target audience is that the DJ's who present on the show are all in there late thirties and onwards so the audience can relate to the presenters because they are of similar age andlisten to similar styles of music. Now though there have been loads of protests and a lot of interest has turned to other radio stations. An article by the independant said that they should switch off radio six because people dislike the DJ's and say there are better and more sophisticated radio stations. Also listening figures have dropped to just 1% of the population.
  BBC Radio 4 target audience is 45+. and you can tell that radio 4 would attract an older audience because it is a pure chat and news show which doesn't play any music. All of the presenters are over the age of 35 and this is the right age for the presenters because it fits in with the target audience. There audience includes men and women because they have a show called womens hour which is a womens chat show. They also have an hour radio show and two half an hour news shows and regular updates throughout the day. They have many one hour talk shows throughout the day so you can tell that they target their audience because their shows are long and very detailed.

research for mojo show

The following questions were asked to fifty people who we believed were between the ages of 15 and 25, which was the target audience for the mojo show.

1: Would you be interested in listening to a band or artist cover an acoustic version of current and recent chart tracks?

2: How old are you?

3: Do you listen to the radio?

4: What station do you listen to?

5: Would you prefer to hear a large variety of acoustic coverings, or mostly covers of chart music?

6: If this acoustic show had only a one hour slot, what time do you feel would be most suitable?

7: Would you find it appealing to hear a ten minute feature on a band, which will also be performing live on air?

8: If a radio station was created that solely played acoustic covers, would you listen to it?

Analysis of questions:

Question 1 proved to be very positive towards the creation of the acoustic show, with 37 of the 50 agreeing that they would be interested. This is great because it is a clear majority of the people we asked agreeing with the idea for our show design.

Question 2 was the general age question. We asked this second because it was more important that people were interested in acoustic music before hearing their age. The highest collected number was 16 people being the age of 19. Followed by 12 people who said they were 16 years old. Then in third place were 17 year olds with 10 people saying they were that age. From the people asked I still feel that the target should remain between 15 and 25 year olds as these were still the people that answered the questions, and follow the same demographic.

In question 3 we asked the 50 people if they listened to the radio. Positively 43 of the people said that they did listen to the radio, leaving only a very small 7 who said they did not. This of course is a good sign for us as it indicates that those who may be interested in the show already listen to the radio; and therefore do not need encouragement to tune in without wanting to.

Question 4 was a follow on from question 3, in which we asked the 50 people what stations they chose to listen to. From the 43 who said they listened to the radio, 41 said that they listened to radio 1, leaving the other 2 saying that they listened to BRMB. This works in our favour as our target audience is the same as radio 1’s, and similar to acoustic music, radio 1 has the live lounge which plays acoustic covers. This then indicates further that the mojo show can be successfully received from our target audience.

The purpose of question 5 was to see if people wanted to hear only acoustic covers of chart music, or a whole variety of acoustic covers. The results of this were that 30 said that they would want to hear a variety of covers, 15 said that they would only want to hear chart covers; and 5 said that they would be happy to hear both. This also is fine for us, because we can take the 30 as definite positives for our show, but can also choose to accept the further 5 as agreeing with varieties of music, helping create a better range in our show.

In question 6 we wanted to see what the public thought would be the ideal time to air the hour long show.  24 of the 50 said that the best time would be between 4 and 5 p.m. 20 people felt that a 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. time slot would be best, followed by 5 who thought that 1 to 2 p.m. would be best, and 1 person who wanted it to be from 9 until 10 p.m. We would choose to accept the highest majority of the public, which was 4 until 5 p.m. this would be the most suitable time for us to air the show, and would be the most likely time to attract the most optimal viewers.

Question 7 was intended to find out if people were interested in hearing a ten minute feature of a live band. Perfectly for us, all 50 of the people asked agreed with this feature. This obviously means that if we were to make the show then it would go ahead with the feature of the band.

Finally we used question 8 to see if people would listen to a radio station that was created, playing specifically acoustic covers and nothing else. 44 of the people asked said that they would, 3 people said that they would give it a try and 3 people said that they would not. We were very happy with this result as the very minute 3 people who said they would not listen, were heavily outweighed by both those who said they would listen; and also those who said they would try it out.

Focus group

The focus group has been made into a video which can be found on the subcity youtube channel. For the focus group I created questions that were relevant to both the show and charity. I tried to get the group thinking about ideas and concepts which we could use on the show to help promote the idea of Children in Need. 

Analysis

The findings in general where that the majority of students have done some work for charity however they have had to have been pushed towards it. i.e by school. 

We also found out that students feel that some sort of collaboration with big artists (Netsky & Nero) as a charity single would help raise money for charity and also keep to the genre of the channel. 

Students also thought that a good way to engage the audience for the full two hour show would be to include guests and quiz shows. We have addressed this as you can see in the script by including guest speakers Arron Snipe and the winner of the presenter challenge being announced.

We also found out that people are most likely to listen to our channel when they are either surfing the internet or driving. This is most likely to be at around 3-5pm. We concluded this because the majority of people in our age bracket get home from college/work and go onto the internet to sites like facebook and twitter. 

Commercial Radio and PSB radio

Commercial and PSB radios...

PSB

In the UK the term PSB refers to broadcasting for the public benefit rather than purely for commercial reasons, the regulator body OFCOM, specifies that only certain TV and radio broadcasters fulfil certain requirements as part of their signed agreement for them to broadcast at all. All the BBC’s TV / Radio channels have a public service remit, even those which are digitally formatted.

 Also, all other channels on terrestrial analogue TV – ITV, Channel 4 and Five are in a contract to provide public  service programming , they have to do this because they can be freely viewed all across the nation for free basically. Recently introduced ‘third tier’ of almost 200 community radio services are specially recognised by Ofcom for being providers of public service broadcasting.

Commercial

Commercial Radio’s are awarded with a licence from Ofcom to allow the broadcast in their given areas, they are tested and nominated through which radio station is the best, and they call this procedure ‘A Beauty Contest’. Stations submit highly detailed applications containing their proposed format .With that, Ofcom can choose if it is suitable for the area and if that genre of station is needed.

The majority of stations in the UK broadcast to a city or a group of towns within an average radius of 20 – 50 miles, second tier regional stations cover larger areas, such as West midlands. The normal genre of these stations is pop, but in different cities the music taste is catered for them and on digital radio.

In most cases of working as an independent company, a lot of the local stations are owned by larger radio groups which broadcast to many different areas. The largest radio operator is ‘Global Radio’.

Primary Research for Sub City

Primary Research: Questionnaire

1. Do you listen to Dubstep, Drum and bass, Hip Hop or Grime, or maybe all of them?

2. If not then what don’t you like about these types of music?

3. How old are you?

4. Do you listen to the radio, if so then what station/stations?

5. What time of the day would you likely listen to it the most, and where would you be?

6. If a radio station was created that played more non mainstream music such as drum and bass and dubstep, would you listen, and if not why?

7. Other than the music being played, what other things should be added e.g. news, a game or quiz?

8. Why would you add this and not others?

9. In a one hour radio slot, would you use 25 minutes of music, 35, 40, or 45?

10. Finally if all the above questions helped create a radio station with the genre of music being the above, do you feel that Sub City FM would be a suitable name, and if not why?
These questions were asked to 100 people who seemed to look/be between the ages of 15 to 25 at the Bull Ring in Birmingham.

Primary research analysis

Charlie and Dan went to the Bullring to ask these questions to members of the public they felt looked between the ages of 15 and 25. They chose the Bullring specifically because they knew that it was a central hub where lots of people with very different opinions, styles and interests would be. They chose these questions as they felt they were suitable for the show we wished to create. They purposely chose the first question to be about their music interests, rather than their age as if they did not like the types of music then we needed to know at the start, rather than a few questions in. Other important questions asked were what features they would like to hear as well on the show, other than just music? This was important as it gave us the chance to see what our hopeful target audiences would want to listen to that would be relevant to them. Another very important question was how much music should be played in the show: 35, 40, 45 minutes? This was because we wanted to know how much music time the majority of people wanted to hear, so that we could work on filling the rest of the time with news and features. They also aimed at keeping the questions open ended so people did not just answer with yes or no answers (even though most did anyway), they wanted them to specifically tell us what music they listened to, and where and when and why they might choose a certain feature over another.

The outcome of the questioning was as follows:

On answering question 1, 71 people said that they listened to all, or some of the genres listed; and 2 of these said that they sometimes listened to the genres. This meant that 29 people said that they did not listen to the genres of music that were listed. Despite 29 people being a large number, in comparison to 71 people saying that they liked the music then I would choose to believe that the overall majority did like the listed genres of music.

Question 2 was for those who said that they did not like the genres of music in question 1. This was designed for us to find out why people did not like these types of music so to see if we could change that through the show. 48 of the 100 people asked either answered not sure, or just did not answer at all. A further 33 people gave various reasons as to why they did not like the music: some finding it boring or too loud and some just stating that they hate it. But 14 people just said that they specifically just liked other genres of music. The feedback from this was good as those who did not like the music, mainly did not like it because they were into other genres and not because they were just against the music. This furthers our purpose for doing this because the likes of Dubstep and drum and bass just isn’t as mainstream as other genres, but it does not mean that their following is not huge because it is.

Question 3 was asking people how old they are. Our original target audience was from 15 to 25 year olds, based on the radio 1 target audience. As we knew that there was no point in asking people of older generations, or younger; we purposely sought out those members of the public who looked to be within the ages of our target audiences. 48 out of the 100 wee between the ages of 14 and 19, and out of this number 38 of them listened to all or 1 or more of the listed genres. With just under half of the people asked being between 14 and 19, and the majority of those liked the music, and then we definitely are on the right track with the choices of music. The other 52 people asked did beween the ages of 20 and 30, with 31 of these also like the listed genres. From the evidence from question 1 being linked with that of question 3, then I believe that the target audience can remain the same along with the genres of music.

Question 4 wanted to know whether the people listened to the radio or not. 46 people said that they did listen to the radio, with the most common answer being radio1. However out of the 46 people who said yes, the majority of these were between the ages of 14 and 19, even though they got the majority by a mere 2 extra answers. 53 of the 100 said that they did not listen to the radio at all, with 1 person saying that they listened to it sometimes. Because 53 was the overall number of people, then that meant that more people did not listen to the radio than did, which would cause us a problem with creating the show; but the results from question 6 help us out there.

Question 5 asked what the most common time and place they listened to the radio was. 18 people listened to the radio at p.m. times, whilst 8 listened at both a.m. and p.m. times. 20 people listened to the radio at a.m. times, but when adding the majority number of 20 with the 8 who listened at morning and evening then you reach 28. This means that we would target our listeners at p.m. times. Also as the majority of people listened to the radio in the car, then we would aim it at coming home from work and college and university from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Question 6 asked the public if they would listen to the radio if a station was created that played more non mainstream music. 33 of those who already listened to the radio said that they would listen to a station that played more non mainstream music, and again 33 of those who did not listen to the radio said that they would listen to a station if it played more non mainstream music. Out of those who did listen to the radio already, 14 of them said they would not listen to a non mainstream station, and 18 of those who did not listen to the radio said that they would not listen to a non mainstream station. From all of these answers, quite a good majority of the people said that they would listen to a station such as the one we plan to create, and therefore outweighs the fact that in question 4 more people did not listen to the radio than those who did.

In question 7 we wanted to find out what other features or sections of the show we could or should include keeping our listeners interested. The majority of people who answered this question said that they wanted to hear the news, with 46 people suggesting it. Followed by 20 people who said that they wanted to hear all the features listed. 13 people said they did not wish to hear any of the listed features in a show, but that was beaten by 10 people who answered games, 2 people who wanted games and quizzes. There were 6 people who wanted quizzes and 1 person who wanted both news and games. We will use all of this evidence to come up with ways to keep the audience interested and interactive with the show. Such as the live interview with a Dj, and the news that will be relevant to the age group and the announcement of the winner to the 'Dubstep bogeys game'.

In question 8 we wanted to know why they would add a certain feature and not any of the others. We did this to see if we could choose a feature that people did not choose much and make it better, and hopefully make it more appealing. A majority of 39 people did not answer this question, or just did not know why. Also 6 people felt that by adding features then they would take up valuable music time in a one hour show. 35 people were happy to hear the news as well as games and quizzes, whereas 11 people thought that the news was boring, and so were games and quizzes. By using this evidence I feel that we should use a news feature, but remain away from the usual games and quizzes that the radio uses. It may be more relevant and appealing to use music based interviews and have the only game feature be the announcing of the winner of the bogeys game.

We used question 9 to see how the public would feel about the amount of music being played on the show. We worried that in a one hour slot, we did not want to play too much music and leave too little time for anything else, or vice versa. Our answers suggested that 40 minutes was the best time with 39 people agreeing with this time length. In second place was 45 minutes with 31 people choosing this time period. The rest of the choices were not very popular with only 9 for 25 minutes and 18 for 35 minutes. We feel it would be best to stick to 40 minutes of music time so that we have enough time to cover all other aspects of the show. However as 45 minutes was a close runner up, we can select a song that may run over a couple of minutes, or play a song at the end of the show to close with; or more than likely let the Dj we plan to interview live play a short mix for us.

The final question we asked to the 100 people of the Bullring was whether they thought that if all the questions above were used to create a radio show with the genres of music being the ones listed above; then would they find the name Sub City an appropriate one. Thankfully out of the 100 people asked all of them answered yes so we can safely acknowledge that the name is acceptable to the public.