Evaluation 7

What I have learnt in the progression from my preliminary task to my final product?

I feel I have come a long way since my preliminary task, my preliminary task was much more basic in terms of content and editing techniques. In my preliminary task I did not know how to use different editing techniques. in my final task I used a range of techniques to create a radio show that really sounded professional and unscripted. Throughout the process I have also learnt how radio stations attract there listeners and how they use different techniques to clearly inform and explain a news story. I have also learnt how radio stations attract different age groups and gender through different types of advertising and a varied news team. When I was carrying out my preliminary task I had no idea how much of a difference background noises and sound effects can make, but as I was doing my final product I realised by having these effects , it can really make listeners believe that they are actually listening to a real recorded interviews or vox pops from somebody on the street.

Here is the final radio show in its entirety 

Evaluation 6

Technology

I have learnt a number of things about different technologies that can be used to construct media products, firstly to record my entire project including the preliminary task, I used a SURE SM58. For the different sound effects and some of the music I used the BBC sound effects Library. The software I used to create the piece of media was Adobe 1.5. With the Adobe software, I was able to take pieces of music or recorded voices and edit them , e.g. I compressed some of the voices to create the sense of someone having a more powerful and mighty voice, I used this technique in my show Jingle. By using the Adobe multitrack I was able to overlap different files to create one final piece or final, for example, the multitrack board came in handy when I was adding background noises to the interviews, to create the sound of a pedestrian town area.

Adobe audition board

Aswell as using a microphone with an anti pop guard, some recorded voices were still not as clear as I wanted them, to overcome this, I used Adobe Audition to remove some clicks and errors in peoples voices. Adobe Audition allowed me to easily mix several pieces of music and sounds through the use of the multitrack option. The software also allowed me to fade voices in and out and play around with the tones of peoples voices. 

The multitrack system was the most important and useful feature of Adobe audition, as it meant I could add sounds and peoples recored voice notes on to one file, and edit the duration of the sound and the order they were placed in the track.

Evaluation 4/5

Audience

My aim for my media product, was for it to attract men and women from the ages of sixteen to thirty five. I felt that it would appeal to people travelling to work in the morning so I made the show air during breakfast time. I also feel that my media product represents my particular social group as it covers a range of different news bulletins and adverts that are not gender or age bias, meaning that they appeal to a big age group like my show does. I also felt that by including male and female reporters I would show gender diversity, making my show appeal to both genders.

One technique which I used to represent and engage my younger listeners (16-25) was by using popular music in particular the song Ghost by Deadmou5 as the show jingle. I felt that this would engage the younger audience as it would appeal to there tastes and hopefully want to listen longer, I also included a reference to an oncoming interview with a popular artist at the start of the show, again I felt by doing this my show would appeal to that younger section of the age group.
I also carefully chose the adverts i included, i felt that both my adverts really would attract my young audience, My first advert would attract young listeners as it is about "Quantum mobile", and there different deals they have, this would attract young listeners , mainly students as The advert is all about getting a good deal and even being given free Headphones, which is indicating saving money.
To engage my older listeners (25+-35), I included stories that would appeal to a more mature pallet, such as the payment protection insurance story, and The mayors interview on the olympics. Also the story about the legendary rockstar band performing again appeals to the older section of my audience and hopefully engage them in the radio show.


 looking at other stations such as Kiss and Capital, I hope to appeal to their listeners and mirror conventions and audience types they attract. I felt my choice of adverts were matched to my target audience, for example My first advert which is for a phone company called quantum mobile, the music is uplifting and the narrator of the advert introduces phone deals, and additional gifts/content when signing up. I felt this advert was relevant for 16 to 35 year olds as this age group is most likely to be more interested in phone deals then people younger than 16, and people older then 35.

Evaluation 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The inspiration for my radio station - City FM comes from other stations like Capital FM, Kiss FM and BBC radio 1. I decided to create a mainstream radiostation, as I felt that I had most experience listening to these types of stations. As my show is mainstream, it consists of mainstream radio themes such as a news show, a weather forecast, radio adverts, newly released/current music and sports updates. My show would be broadcasted from 9 AM until 7Pm, this time period, as its time appeals for listeners going to work and parents taking there children to school. And also finishes as people are coming home from work.

Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

During the planning stage of my research, I had decided that i would have to think about who I would use for different characters in my radio show, e.g. the presenter, news reader and voices for news reports and adverts. I was very careful when casting people for certain parts as I wanted to portray a realistic, authentic sounding radio show.

For my News presenter I felt it was necessary to cat someone who had a clear serious voice, and who was easy to understand, I came to the conclusion I had to cast someone with these qualities from listening to other news reporters on other similar radio stations like Capital FM.

Other voices I required were for Vox pops. By listening to other news bulletins, in particular focusing my attention on public Vox pops, for my final news story, which was on payment protection insurance, I realised I would need to cast someone who was able to do a kind of common middle class accent.

For my "expert" in a certain field, who in this case was Catherine Delaware from Watchdog Business headquarters. I felt a woman would be appropriate, for a couple of main reasons. Firstly the woman I casted had the ability to talk in a professional,serious voice, and secondly because at that point in time I hadn't had any female characters in my show. Having female characters in my show, felt very necessary as all the other radio shows I had listened to included both genders in there shows.

While recording characters for the radio project I had to direct and instruct my actors to perform and speak in a way that was relevant to there specific character, this was challenging as I had to instruct characters to re-do some of there recordings as their first recordings weren't as authentic as I felt was necessary for the show.

Evaluation 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media ?

After completing my preliminary task the first task I completed was listen to a range of radio stations, by doing this I was able to compare different station, to observe the similarities and differences. As I was planning on doing a radio station inspired by Capital Fm, I listened to similar London based radio stations and noted down the structural features that were similar.

most of the research and planning for my radio station was carried out to discover and to educate myself  on the main conventions of radio. By doing this I felt I would be confident enough to incorporate these conventions into my own radio show.I found that regardless of the station and genre of station, there were many similarities shared between the stations.

Each news bulletin contained three to four stories which included sound bites, vox pops and outside broadcasts. Another aspect I picked up on is that each news bulletin from different stations began with the same type of music, which would automatically tell viewers that the news of the hour or day was about to be told, after hearing this across several stations, I made sure to note it down and incorporate it into my own station.

Whilst listening to various stations such as Kiss FM, Capital Fm and LBC I noticed that they each included various jingles throughout there daily show, for example, kiss had a jingle for news, for the introduction of a new DJ and a main station jingle. Having noticed this I made sure I would include several jingles in my own station.

OFCOM

 COMMERCIAL RADIO STATION FORMAT

CITY FM 102.5

Character of Service

A LONDON ORIENTED HITS AND NEWS STATION, FOCUSING ON BREAKING NEWS, WITH A STRONG COMMITMENT TO THE CITY OF LONDON.

Licensed area	LONDON  (as in Ofcom advertisement)
Frequency	102.5 MHz
Service duration	24 hours
Locally-made hours	At least 10 hours a day during daytime weekdays (must include breakfast). At least 4 hours daytime Saturdays and Sundays.
Local news bulletins	At least hourly at peaktime weekdays and weekends. Outside peak, UK-wide, nations and international news should feature.

Shared arrangements (if applicable)

Co-location	No Arrangements
Programme sharing	No Arrangements

Definitions

Speech / Music	Excludes advertising, programme/promotional trails & sponsor credits
Peaktime	Weekday breakfast and drivetime, and weekend late breakfast
Daytime	0600 to 1900 weekday and weekend
Locally-made	Production and presentation from within the licensed area

Notes

This Format should be read in conjunction with Ofcom’s published Localness Guidelines as updated with additional text from “The Future of Radio : The Next Phase” (2007)                         AGREED FEB 2008