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

Who I imagine my intended target audience will be

My target audience for my radio station is  men and women, especially for people who work 

9-5 jobs, who drive to work in the morning, these are the people I think would benefit from my radio station. My age bracket will range from 16–35 years of age; meaning that my listeners can be anyone from teenagers to middle aged people. I can see my listeners listening to the radio station in the car or at work with headphones. My station is similar to BBC Radio 1 and Heart. Newspapers my audience are likely to read are middle market tabloids such as the Daily Mail and The Sun this is where my audience are likely to get the majority of their news from. A middle-market newspaper is one that attempts to cater to readers who want some entertainment value from their newspaper as well as sufficient coverage of significant news events. My listeners are likely to be middle class working people and teenagers/students.

BBC Radio 1 & Capital FM Homepage Analysis

CAPITAL FM

Style: The colour of the home page is mainly neutral, as it includes blue and yellow, which are neutral colours, implying that it's for both men and women.

Station name: The station name is Capital FM. And the slogan is "The UK's number one hit music station. Which again isn't a gender bias name. Also it includes the fact that it is the UK's number one radio station.

Content: I felt I should look at Capital FM as it is one of the, if not the most popular radio station in the UK. The first thing i noticed about the website was that it was predominantly music based, it was clear to me that Music was capital FM's most important category. on the website, most the content is about news/ scandals about musicians, upcoming musical events, Music charts and competitions to win gift vouchers. Also on the home page most, if not all the pictures were pictures of musicians. To conclude. Capital FM's so selling point, was on Music.

BBC RADIO 1

Style: The colour of the home page is red, which again like the Capital FM, has no gender bias, the home page is also quite simple, and is structured nicely and is everything is easily accessible. It also looks like quite a modern home page due to the large pictures and simplicity.


Station name: The station name is BBC Radio 1, this name is simple and easy to remember, people will also recognise it more due to the fact is part of the BBC

Content: On the home page the content was quite general and covers most people needs, as it has different sections such as the live feed section, DJ's & shows, music and news beat. this is completey different to Capital FM's site as it not only focuses on music and artists but also includes links to News , which Capitals website didn't. Further down the website it includes eve more links to other pages on a variety of different interests, such as, new, weather, sports, finance and different genres of music the consumer may be interested in.

RADIO QUESTIONNAIRE 
Please circle at least one for each of the following questions:

GENDER

Male          Female

..................................................................................................................................................

AGE?

16-25          26-35          26-45          46-55          56-65          66+

..................................................................................................................................................

ON AVERAGE HOW OFTEN DO YOU LISTEN TO THE RADIO PER WEEK?

Less than 1 hour         1-2 hours          3-5 hours          6-8 hours          10 hours ..................................................................................................................................................

WHEN YOU LISTEN TO RADIO, ON AVERAGE HOW LONG DO YOU LISTEN FOR?

Under 5 minutes          5-10 minutes          10minutes – 30 minutes            30 minutes- 1 hour                 1-2 hours              2 hours +

..................................................................................................................................................

AT WHAT TIMES OF THE DAY DO YOU NORMALLY LISTEN TO THE RADIO?
7am-10am          10am-1pm          1pm-4pm          4pm-7pm          7pm-12am          
12am-7am

..................................................................................................................................................

WHAT PLATFORMS DO YOU LISTEN TO THE RADIO?
Analogue radio (AM/FM)         Sky/Freeview TV          DAB digital radio          Iplayer         Podcasts          Phone          Other (Please state below)
..................................................................................................................................................

WHAT TYPE OF RADIO STATIONS DO YOU LISTEN TO?
Music          Sport          Radio news/current affairs          Phone in                      Chat shows         Other (Please state below)
..................................................................................................................................................
WHERE ARE YOU WHEN YOU LISTEN TO THE RADIO?     In the car       At home       

 Shopping           With friends          On the bus                  At work/university/college   

  Other (Please state below).

..................................................................................................................................................HOW OFTEN DO YOU READ THE NEWSPAPER?
Never          Rarely        Once a week          Twice/three times a week             Daily                  More than once a day

WHERE DO YOU READ THE NEWSPAPER? 
At home          On the bus          On the train/tube     At work/college/university                

Other (Please state below) 

..................................................................................................................................................

WHAT NEWSPAPERS DO YOU READ? 
Daily Mail         Daily telegraph          Metro          The sun          The Evening Standard                    The Times         Other (Please state below)

..................................................................................................................................................
WHAT TYPE OF MAGAZINES DO YOU READ?
Music            Gadget/technology        Sports         Celebrity/gossip       Men’s health           Woman’s Health         None of the above (Please state below)

..................................................................................................................................................
WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WOULD YOU PRISE HIGHLY AS BEING AN INTEREST TO PEOPLE ?
Food          Cars          Business       Finance        Health         Sport       Music  General News Celebrities   Politics          

Other (Please state below)

..................................................................................................................................................................

Bulletin, commenting on the different ways of reporting, illustrating and elaborating on each of their stories

The Nightly News LBC 97.3   Thursday may 10th 2012

First Story: Presenter starts:  the men in tights, the bugles and the giant gold carriage can look a bit strange, but the traditional queens speech could affect what you earn spend or even whether you get the sack, over the next year, then directs straight to a sound bite from the queen with no introduction. “ My ministers first priority will be to reduce the deficit, and restore economic stability”

Second Story: Presenter starts: one survivor who’s been giving evidence to the trial of mass killer Anders Breivik, in Norway says he cried with joy while shooting at them, the 33 year old admits killing 77 people in a gun and bomb attack last year, Breivik said he did it to defend the country against multi- culturism. Presenter then introduces a news beat  reporter: Here’s news beats Debby Ramsey. Tonya Brenno was the first eye witness to testify, she was camping on the island of Latoya, with other members of the countries Labour youth party, she said they’d held an emergency meeting, when they’d heard about a bomb attack in Oslo earlier that day, the 24 year old told the court that shortly after, she heard what she thought were fireworks going off , it was Breivik who had arrived on the island dressed as a police man firing shots, she said shed survived by plane dead.

News Stories Online - Annotated, Referring to the News Values of the Story

DERBY FIRE: WOMAN HELD AFTER FIVE CHILDREN DIE IN BLAZE

WHO? A woman and mother of six
WHAT? A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murdering five children, after a house burns and kills five children
WHY? The police have listen the mother of the children as a suspect in the case.
WHERE? A house in Derby

HOW? The cause of the fire is unknown right now.

NEWS VALUES:

IMMEDIACY: The story has happened recently and is breaking news on the BBC website.

FAMILIARITY: This story is geographically familiar to us as it has happened in  Britain.

IMPACT: This story has impact on readers as it shows the  effect of fires and causes awareness to people reading the article.

PREDICTABILITY: This is a very unexpected and unpredictable thing to happen

NEGATIVITY: This article is of a negative nature as it shows the effects of house fires.

SCANDAL: This article will definitely provoke moral outrage as the mother of the deceased children has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

"SONIC WEAPON" DEPLOYED IN LONDON DURING OLYMPICS

WHO? Ministry of defence
WHAT? The american made long range acoustic device (LRAD) has been confirmed to be deployed in London during the olympics.
WHY? As a means of security and to broadcast on a large scale
WHERE? In London on the Thames

NEWS VALUES:

IMMEDIACY: The story has happened recently, but isn't breaking news

FAMILIARITY: This story is geographically familiar to readers as the story is based in the heart of London.

AMPLITUDE: This is a big event and does include alot of people as it is part of the security and broadcasting equipment being used to control the olympic games in the summer.

FUEL TANKER DRIVER STRIKE AVERTED IN NARROW VOTE

WHO? Fuel tanker drivers
WHAT? A strike by fuel tanker drivers has been averted after they narrowly voted to accept a deal, the unite union says.
WHY? They were striking for better pay
WHERE? Around the UK

NEWS VALUES:
IMMEDIACY: The story has recently happened, but is not breaking news.

FAMILIARITY: It is geographically close to us, as it involves vans that travel over the UK.
AMPLITUDE: This is a big event as does involve a large number of people such as the truck drivers and the members of the unite union.
IMPACT: We can identify this story on having an effect on our lives because it involves and has an impact on people who drive, which is a large number of people, it also may make the reader wary about what's going on.
SURPRISE: This event isn't much of a surprise and is expected to happen now and then.
CONFLICT: The story does contain drama as there are disagreements between two groups of drivers on wether to strike or not.

Bulletin 4

Bulletin 4: The Nightly News 7pm LBC 97.3

News values

Who: Nine Men What: Nine Pakistani men who ran a child exploitation ring have been jailed. Where: Greater Manchester When: 9th may 2012 Why: As a means of income How: They were found guilty of offences such including rape and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.

Immediacy: The story has happened recently Familiarity: It is a familiar story as it happening in England. Amplitude: It doesn't involve a large number of people. Frequency: This event isn't frequent as it doesn't happen often. Impact: The story has great impact as it may make listeners feel threatened for themselves or for members of their families. Predictability: This a very unexpected story. Surprise: It is a surprising story. Continuity: It has been defined as news already and is part of an ongoing story as their is a conviction trial involved. Personification: This story is a human interest story. Negativity: It is a very negative story. Scandal: This story is likely to provoke moral outrage from parts of the audience, as it's a very disturbing crime.