Radio Station Report

My favourite radio station is BBC Radio 1Xtra which is a digital urban radio station. It has been on air since 2002. It is owned by of course the BBC and is the sister station of BBC Radio 1. The radio station is funded by the TV license fee which is paid by British Households in the UK. 

The audience demographics for the station is required to appeal to 15-24 year olds of a mixed gender. They are particularly, although not exclusively, ethnic minorities, however the reach is higher with black and minority ethnic (BAME) audiences. The image below from RAJAR shows the statistics from 2009/10 and compares it to more updated statistics from 2013/14. The views from 2009 compared to 2013 reveal how they have increased their views by almost half the amount and have reached 7.6% of 15-24 year olds each week, up from 4.7% from 2009. Within ethnicity, the figure shows that BAME audiences have reached 11.3% each week which is almost double the amount of white audiences. There are slightly more male listeners than female

Audience perceptions of the audience's lifestyle choices are that they listen to the radio to find new, original music content that's emerging urban music. The listeners are mostly teens that are in school or university and also lower class workers to work part time. They will mainly listen to the radio station whilst sitting at work or listening whilst getting ready for school/university, maybe even in their spare time. The figure below shows the total amount of listeners per week - just over 1 Million - and the total hours listened - 5.6 Million. These figures have been recently updated and conveys how popular the station is in the UK.

 

The days schedule begins at 6 in the morning where they have a breakfast show on air for four hours. The breakfast show is always presented by the host Dotty who starts the show of pumped and energetic to make the morning early birds feel activated and motivated to get up in the morning to start their day.

 Throughout the daytime, between 10-12:45 where the presenter Ace plays slow throwback RnB songs for all the people working to vibe to relaxed music. This is also followed by interviews with music artists and the latest news before everyones lunch break. Yasmin Evans also leads the daytime schedule through 1pm-4pm who answers calls to the audience to hear what the listeners think about the song they have chosen to play. This appeals to the audience as they can hear what other listeners have to say and will also be encouraged to text in and reach out to the show where they can speak live on the radio to the radio hosts.  

After 6pm-midnight, the music tends to be more mixed genre of music such as playing reggae, grime, RnB and the latest songs on the top of the chart. This is the type of music that the listeners on Radio 1Xtra like to hear and listen to during their day. Compared to the time of day it is the hosts change their mode of address. For example; Mistajams is more relaxed when he talks to his listeners and talks quite informal, whereas Charlie Sloth is more loud and energetic and speaks very informal which builds up the listeners energy and mood, making the audience very enthusiastic.   

 

The name of the programme I have chosen is MistaJam who is scheduled between 4-7pm. This is scheduled for listeners on their way home from work and plays Traffic Jam mixes to entertain the audience whilst they sit in traffic. the audience can access the programme from their radio station systems in their cars, mobiles or on the web for computers. The type of of music he plays is Urban and Electronic music and plays new music from a broad spectrum. 
The structure of the programme is that at the beginning the presenter begins with a special traffic jam mix that he has created which is quite calming and plays a lot of RnB Soul music and then changes into grime which is a lot more upbeat. He dedicates his playlist to specific artists and in this programme he has chosen to play all of Stormzy's songs. This plays for the last quarter of the programme. When playing the mixes he likes to commentate between songs with other radio presenter which reveal their personalities more and and entertains the listeners as he is quite humourous. An example of MistaJam creating humour is at 28:32 minutes where he begins to sing Happy Birthday to a person in a purposefully off-key pitch. 
The purpose of the programme is to entertain the listeners because the whole impression of the jam session is informal, engages young listeners by using their same dialect and plays contemporary black music with supporting new UK artists. There is not much dialogue, mostly music but MistaJam interrupts the music as he allows talks about what song he will play next. At the beginning of the programme, the radio station has advertised the TV show Stranger Things where a celebrity from Foo Fighters discusses how he wishes he met Millie Bobbie Brown, the main character Eleven. 
They then follow this with a quick news update from Newsbeat at 0:30 seconds where they update the listeners on an interview with the famous music artist Kendrick Lamar and tells them what time the interview will start which is 8PM. The purpose of interviews and telling the audience before hand is so that the listeners can be increased that time and there will be a lot of people listening in who would what to hear what Kendrick Lamar has to say on air. A presenter uses the term 'exclusive' to convey that the interview will only be heard on this one source. This affects a mass audience to listen in as they won't have a chance to hear it again from any other source. 
After a song has played, the presenter tells to the listeners what the song was called followed by a discussion with their co-presenter.
 An example of where this has happened, is between 1:23:11 - 1:27:08 where a song plays and then once it has finished, MistaJams announces the song name which is called 'Trigger Bang by Lily Allen and Giggs' and then begins to talk to Daisy, his assistant producer who would create the music playlists for MistaJam and run the social media to look at tweets or phoneins that are coming in for the show. They also mention their radio stations twitter @name to tweet into the show where he can read out the tweet. He asks her to do a Jamaican translation from a voiceover that they added into the show of two people in a conversation speaking in Jamaican where Daisy then has to translate what the two people are saying in English. While she repeats the conversation , it creates humour as the two presenter start to laugh. Adding in this conversation portrays their colloquial language and how to appeal to thir young audience. As we have seen from Radio1 Xtra's figures, majority of the listeners come from a BAME background, therefore can relate to what they are saying and this would entertain them.
 MistaJam's programme is split into two half as it is interrupted by a 15 minute Newsbeat update part of his whole programme. This is an epitome that conveys informing and educating their listeners for those that may not have had the chance to listen to the daily news. In the NewsBeat they have jingles at the beginning of the broadcast that introduce it. This is heard at 0:35 seconds and only lasts for 5 seconds long.
He then continues his programme followed by music and entertainment.

T2 - Sound Characteristics

There are many sound elements that are used in several different media products. These sound elements are used across media industries such as Film, TV, Computer Games and Advertisements etc. Here are the following sound elements:

Educate:  Narrations in media products explain information to the audience to help them understand a particular point of view to anchor meaning. It uses diegetic sound where the narrator is explaining the events happening on screen to educate the audience. There are many media texts that are educational and use narrations such as Documentaries and Radio Dramas. 

In this documentary New Zealand: Earths Mythical Islands that I have chosen as an example of educating, the episode is about learning and acknowledging the astonishing wildlife that exists in New Zealand. The images captured in the documentary reveal the breath-taking creatures that live within the most geologically active country on earth. 

 At 2:14 minutes we hear the narrator explaining about a specific breed of penguins, however it is only the penguins we see and their behaviours and the sound of the narrators voice explaining their activity. We hear the narrator say dialogue, 'This Snares Penguin has been out with hundreds of others catching fish for their chicks'. This demonstrates him educating the audience as we now know the name of it and what it does for a living. 

Entertain: In fictions they use audio to portray everyday activities and make it believable and entertaining. It has the use of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. Audio-visuals are essential to creating entertainment and an engaging text. Many radio dramas use audio-visuals in their episodes such as sound motifs where the sound effects are associated with a character or a setting. This is helpful for the audience as they can clearly distinguish the characters arrivals or actions because they can only hear them and not see. 

An example of a Radio Drama is a Radio 4 broadcast called The Truth About Hawaii which is based on a story of how antibiotics have been restricted due to limited resources of the medication. A girl and her family is in desperate need of them as she has a cut on her leg that has gotten infected and may soon die. In this episode we hear her hallucinating about a volcano in Hawaii that is erupting and hear the bangs of rocks cracking and liquid of hot gushing lava in the background. These sounds signify the girl’s imagination and the location she is in to help the audience visualise what she is seeing. 

Inform: The news informs the audience by using dramatic sound during the start and end of TV news broadcast. Advertisements - another media product- creates sound by using jingles to portray a brand identity of the product or company. This is created by using slogans followed by a tune that is designed to be easily remembered. The audience identify the companies signature sound with the product they are promoting. 

An example of this is Haribo, a brand that uses a slogan in their jingle at the end of the advert to effectively use brand identity. For the advertisement, they use jingles to help the product become recognizable. The slogan they use is ‘Kids and grown-ups love it so, the happy world of Haribo' which they have been using since 1995, making it memorable and significant for the audience. 

Sell Products: Many media products have voiceovers used to help sell the product and be engaging. The voice actor will describe the product to give the audience more insight to what the product’s like to appeal to them. These are mainly done in advertisements where they have described what the product tastes like or explained what the product does and how to use it. 

An example of this done is in the Muller Simply Bliss advert with Nicole Scherzinger. In this advert there is a lot of dialogue where the actors speak describing the yoghurt. The actress say’s ‘It’s so creamy, it’s divine’ which will sell the product as she describes the delightful taste in an optimistic tone of voice. Another voice at 0:12 seconds explains what the yoghurt is and states, 'A Greek style yoghurt that's luxuriously creamy because it's whipped' and this voiceover engages the audience and will compel them to buy it.

Wild Tracks: This is audio that is recorded on location known as off-screen sound or extra takes on lines whilst not filming - unsynchronised sound. This is diegetic sound. In film and video production, wild sound is recorded so that it can be inserted into the video in post-production. This is desirable for many reasons, including helping keep the background noise consistent between shots, to help set the mood of the scene and to accompany any new audio that is added to the scene. Typical examples of wild tracks would be narration, phone conversations, and answering machine messages playing back in a scene.

An example that wild tracks are used in a film scene from He's Just Not That Into You where a group of actors are listening to a person’s voicemail. This audio is added in to be part of the scene where the voicemail creates humour. 

Atmospheric Sound: This is background sounds that are atmospheric such as wind, birds chattering, rain pouring etc. This is put in to prevent unnatural silence in a scene and to set the location of where it’s held. In some media texts they have added in audio-visuals in the background to set natural settings. 

In the Direct Line advertisement, the scene is set outside, therefore the producers have added in sound effects of bird chirping in the background and also the revving of the car that the old man drives. Also, right at the beginning of the advert, we can hear gas hissing in the background which represents that the car has broken down. 

Sound Effects: These can be both diegetic and non-diegetic sound that are enhanced sounds used in many different media products. This can also be known as Foley effects where the production record sounds such as breaking glass or walking across water to enhance realism of a specific soundtrack. This is created by Foley artists. The sounds they create need to be convincing. 

In the end scene of Fast and Furious 7, there is a soundtrack of spanish music that plays at the beginning and also another song 'See You Again' towards the ending which is added in by producers. There are also the sounds of the waves that are added to illustrate the sound of the sea that they are near. 

Dialogue: This is speech that is made from characters when they speak/talk. Things that are considered in dialogue is language, tone, accent and volume they speak in. It is used in creative ways to anchor the time and place such as if the film was set in Italy, the actors would have to put on an Italian accent to portray the time and place it is set in. 

An example of accent change is in Meet Joe Black where Brad Pitt changes his accent to sound Jamaican as he speaks to an old Jamaican lady in the scene so that she understands him. However, the accent is intended to create humour for the audience as that is not his normal everyday speaking accent. 

Music (Incidental/Theme):  Music is used to develop mood or meaning in a media product/text. this is called Incidental music that builds atmosphere and creates tension to portray emotion. I have already used this example, but it is perfect for depicting teary and heartfelt emotion. My example is in the end of Fast and Furious 7 where they play the soundtrack See You Again to dedicate Paul Walkers death and the part he played in the film. 

Music included in TV shows use Stings where a sound indicates an end of a scene or a dramatic climax. This is used in Eastenders where they use their significant 'duff duff' moments which notifies the audience on something important. In this scene the duff duff ends after Max witnesses his two daughters fall off the Queen Vics roof which is very shocking for the audience, hence the duff duff moment. 



How it enhances visuals:  Sound enhances visuals you hear to create tension and establish mood. It is created to excite and appeal to the audience along with illustrating insight in the background which depicts the time and location of where the characters are to make the audience aware. This is really important for radio dramas as all the sounds need to be clear and concise throughout otherwise it might confuse them. In an episode of the The Archers, at the beginning we can hear two characters eating breakfast as there is background noise of cutlery hitting a bowl and also hear the sound of the newspaper pages shuffling around. This shows that it is early in the morning. 

Silence: This creates extreme tension in media products or in radio dramas it is used to give time for each character or voice to speak so that their voices do not overlap with each other and confuse the listeners. An example of where silence is used is in a BBC podcast called GrownUplLand where they sometimes use silences to distinguish a different speaker is talking. These are only brief silences as sometimes it could make the conversation quite awkward if the silences were a little too long. 

T1 - Radio Organisations Grid