Radio

Broadcast Radio

There are two types of radio stations, public service and commercial both choose there playlists based on a variety of things. Public service stations like the BBC have  to organise there playlist based on there target demographic. Commercial stations organise there playlist to gain and retain more listeners to be able to charge more for advertising. One of the attractions to broadcast radio is that the DJs have a prominent role and DJs are often the main draw to radio stations. The presenters presenting style is often matched to the type of radio show it is, for example a radio show that plays music for Teenagers wouldn't have a presenter that wasn't young.

Commercial radio stations all have a similar style of broadcasting but with different genres of music. I listend to key103 from 10am-11am, There target audience is mainly 15-44 and primarly focus on 24-44 with a female bias. Adverts generally are played every 2-3 songs and its station ID when when they DJ has just introduced a song or when a song has finished and the DJ is about to speak. During morning and afternoons the news is also played every hour as that is when most people are listening in there cars on there way to or from work.

We visited the BBC radio studios on Thursday the 14th of march at Salford quays. The purpose of the visit was to see how the BBC radio manchester plans the content for there radio shows, The target audience for BBC radio manchester is 55+ and have a speech to music radio ratio of roughly 60:40. Older people like more speech to audio because they are lonely and feel like someone is speaking directly to them. They pick there songs not by the most popular but by songs that people dont mind listening to and wouldnt change the radio station if the song came on. They play there station idents every link such as everytime theres a news report or songs.

Internet Radio

Internet radio generally play songs that are usually not played on the bigger radio stations and play less listened to genres of music like Gangster rap and Dubstep, Internet radio can be listened to anywhere around the world as long as you have an Internet connection. Some UK Internet radio stations restrict listening to there stations to just in the UK due to copyright and licencing issues. Internet radio generally has less adverts than Broadcast radio because it does not have to advertise as much, the DJ is also rarely heard and almost all of the airtime for most Internet radio stations is made up of songs.


In store radio

Many Large shopping centres and retailers use in store radio as this can provide benefits to sales and the customers, Benefits include being able to the radio for promotional purposes in between songs to advertise current sales and offers in store. What songs the in store radios choose to play depends on the type of shop, Shops that sell clothes aimed at teenagers and young adults will generally play songs that are popular to that age and group. Whereas retailers such as Coop will play more relaxing music to create a relaxing atmosphere while shoppers are in the store.





Summary