Radio broadcasting is known as a way of mass-communicating a message through radio waves. There are different types of radio operations: national commercial, public, regional, community, internet and non-profit radio.
National commercial radio is known as a type of radio operation that functions on making profit and often garners large audiences such as Classic FM and talkSPORT. There are different genres of national commercial radio, such as sports, music, news and talk. In relation to the examples of commercial radio given above, talkSPORT is a sports radio station that focuses its discussion on commentaries of sports matches and sporting debates. On the other hand, Classic FM is a music station that specifically plays the genre of classical music (music from over 20 years ago).
The purpose of national commercial radio can range from entertainment, education, information and promotion depending on the type of programme. Radio programmes that specialise in distributing music will clearly be primarily for entertainment purposes, and a radio programme that is dedicated to distributing lifestyle programmes could be for educational purposes. In order for these radio programmes to thrive, they’ll need to occasionally air advertisements or have sponsorships with other companies if they are offering free services. In order for that to occur, radio broadcasters will have to seek for companies who are willing to advertise their products through their services, which is usually only available when a radio service has established itself as a reasonably popular platform that could prove to be worth advertising on. In that case, advertisers would subsequently pay the radio broadcasters to air advertisements on their programme which would then in turn be a form of income for the radio broadcasters. Another form of income is to make the radio programme only listenable through a monthly subscription service.
Public radio, on the other hand, is a non-profit radio operation that is usually funded by the government in order to continuously function. An example is the line of British radio stations that are owned by the BBC such as the traditional BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live. There are also other BBC Radio stations, but they are digital only- such as BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 4 Extra, BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra and BBC Radio 6 Music. The purpose of these radio stations varies depending on the radio channel itself, although the first three BBC Radio stations (including Xtra) and BBC Radio 6 specialise in music <of different genres>, the others specialise in news, discussion, interviews and sports. This presents the music stations as entertainment-driven, whilst the news, discussion and interview stations either educate or inform audiences. The different music radios that the BBC distributes content for all appeal to different demographics of people who love music, for instance BBC Radio 1 plays modern, popular music and BBC Radio 1Xtra plays more niche music like alternative pop and music from black artists.
Online Radio is a strictly digital audio service that is achieved through streaming media via connection to the Internet. One of the most popular online radio platforms is iHeartRadio, which is primarily a music broadcasting platform. The purpose of online radio is identical to national commercial radio; whereby it can be either to entertain, educate, inform or promote. Online radio services are mostly targeted to young adults as the older generation of audiences are less likely to engage with the whole development of online services as they are accustomed to traditional methods of radio listening such as using cable sets.
When attempting to plan a professional radio broadcast, there are several different personnel that may be involved in the production process. These may include (but are not restricted to):
- Announcer
- Chief Engineer
- Maintenance Engineers
- Music Director
- News Director
- Promotions Director
- Station Manager
An announcer is practically the “protagonist” of a radio station. They are responsible for introducing the radio station and closing the radio station at bare minimum, whilst also covering any dialogue in-between such as brief advertisements and announcements.
The chief engineer is responsible for ensuring that the station has all the technology required to achieve music playback live, which may include disc jockeys and digital computers, as well as overlooking the technological functionalities of said equipment to verify that they are constantly working properly. Usually chief engineers will schedule maintenance to be handled for the equipment on air if need be and supervise technicians while a broadcast is going on.
Maintenance engineers work harmoniously with the chief engineer, except it is of a subordinate role which means that they will strictly be adhere to any commands given by the chief engineer and will have more of a practical role. Maintenance engineers will be the one who keep the radio set safe by any removing any hazardous wires, switches, plugs or buttons and will be alerted by the chief engineer if there are any technological malfunctions which the maintenance engineer will try to fix.
The music director handles a radio station’s music playlist and will decide alongside a program director which songs will be played on air.
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BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is a non-profit, public radio station that is owned and operated by the BBC in the United Kingdom. According to BBC 5 Live, their vision statement is “Radio 5 live is BBC Radio’s home of breaking news and live sports coverage, bringing its audience major news stories and sports events as they happen, along with programming designed to inform, entertain and involve”. Unlike the other BBC Radio channels, perceptively it is more interactive and contemporary than their other radio stations as it doesn’t operate on distributing retrospective content, like playback of old shows, music, news or events. Radio 5 Live largely follows an unscripted format which allows viewers to connect with the station more directly as it will sound more conversational and natural, as if they were participating on the station. Listening figures are roughly around 5.4 million per week, which is about 3.4% of the market share of radio in the UK.
Contextually, BBC Radio 5 Live launched in 1994 as a revamp from the previous Radio 5 – as the original Radio 5 was thematically inconsistent, where it would air a melange of children’s programmes, sports programmes, educational programmes and occasionally news. Gradually it became rather imperative to dedicate the programme to live coverage, as across the other BBC radio stations, there wasn’t enough coverage for the amount of sports and news that were incrementally occurring each day, as both fields were transcending beyond what they previously were- with sport becoming more commercialised with the Premier League replacing the First Division in 1992 which meant that the BBC had to rapidly respond to this if they wanted to properly capitalise on the populating sports genre (not necessarily for profit, but for exposition). Hence, the original Radio 5 was replaced by Radio 5 Live in 1994. Even though Sky Sports Live has amassed the majority of sports television broadcasting rights, BBC Radio 5 Live has still pulled in large listening figures.
Radio 5 Live is transmitted through analogue radio in AM on medium wave 693 kHz and 909 kHz and digitally through digital radio, television and Internet radio.
M1 – BBC Radio 5 Live (from BBC Sounds)
In order to gain insight about the structure of industry standard radio programmes, I listened to the Football Daily podcast from BBC 5 Live’s selection of radio podcasts. The podcast lasted around 38 minutes and discussion in this podcast was specifically focused on The Women’s World Cup in an interview-style format, presented by Mark Chapman and a team of interviewees. Football Daily appears to be a recurring segment with different weekly guests, all being football fans so that discussion can be instigated. The show is clearly targeted towards people who enjoy football and hearing other people’s thoughts about any current events relating to the sport.
In the beginning, the podcast had a brief intro that utilised a combination of electric guitar music and dialogue that continuously introduces the viewer to the radio podcast that they are listening to, “The Football Daily. From BBC Sport and BBC 5 Live”. Intros are a common convention of radio podcasts as it helps viewers understand what they will be listening to, as there would an absence of visual cues to signify the topic of the podcast if audiences were listening to the programme without selecting it voluntarily. Shortly after, we can hear the presenter introduce himself and two interviewees who will join him in discussion, in a seemingly unscripted format as he goes off-topic and asks some personal questions which presents a rather informal mode of address; initially. After the brief overview of the team who is joining the presenter in the podcast, they dwell deep into relevant sports discussion that begins with England’s performance at the Women’s World Cup, which carries a more formal approach, as the discussion is more one-sided towards the individuals who respond their thoughts to the presenter. Their responses are rather descriptive, genuine and sensible as opposed to more rabid football fans who may use profanity and muffled speech to describe their team’s performance. This alternating mode of address approach changes the viewer’s processing of information when listening to the podcast. In the beginning where informal personal questions were asked, listeners are likely to not listen to the information as thoroughly as it’s mostly just a form of laid-back bonding the presenter with the interviewing cast. However, after this brief introduction, when the presenter gets onto the main topic of the podcast, it adopts a more formal approach which would then cause the listeners to be more alert so that they understand what happened in regards to the football talk that they are tuning in for.
After that, football topics switch with the intro jingle playing again which appears to also be the radio podcast’s interlude. This time, the presenter asks interviewees about their thoughts on the Manchester United’s transfer window (players moving in and out of the club’s roster).
Generally, as this is a BBC-owned station, there are no advertisements as they are a non-profit organisation that has the purpose of delivering content on behalf of the government.
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