Radio

Explanation of radio:

Radio is undergoing a digital revolution – every bit as profound as that affecting TV - and as with all revolutions many of the eventual outcomes are uncertain. In the past the BBC has dominated national service provision, while the commercial sector was originally created to provide local services across the UK.Radio listening has remained strong throughout the last decade with some 90% of the population tuning-in every week.  In the first quarter of 2007, that meant 45 million adult listeners (age15+), accessing a growing number and variety of stations and formats, available across an increasing range of platforms.

 There are three different types of radio:
1) Publicly funded. E.G The BBC
- The BBC has a current share of over half of all listening hours - this is predominantly listening to national networks (80%) rather than local services (20%).
2) Commercial. E.G Heart
- Commercial radio commands a share of total radio listening of just over 42% but the proportions are in reverse to those of the BBC – with 75% of this listening being to local stations and 25% to national stations.
- Among its core audience of 15-44 year olds commercial radio’s share is substantially greater than that of the BBC.3) Community and voluntary. E.G the hospital/college
- Community and voluntary radio stations are very different organisations but with the common aim of providing niche radio services tailored to the needs of distinct communities, enjoying the closest of relationships with their audiences.
My assigned BBC station:
As a task in one of my lessons, I was assigned a BBC station. I looked at radio 6. I think that the target audience is very large, ranging from 15-40, because in the programme policies 2010/11, it says that they offer music from the 1960s to the present day.
The BBC management has recommended to close BBC radio 6 by the end of 2011 so that they can focus on the output of popular music on radio 1. This shows that radio 6 is a lot less popular than radio 1.
When I listened to radio 6, to make sure whether the programme policies were correct, I listened to the morning show for half an hour. I found that there was no music played, and it had two men presenting and talking about 3 different subjects the whole time. These subjects were, student stories (they had students texting in), celebrity mastermind, and about themselves.
I think that this did not relate very well to the programme policy.



Mode of address:

The mode of address falls under three different categories:
1)Direct - (Inclusive)
2)Indirect - (Exclusive)
3)Register - (Formal, Informal - Colloquiolisms)



Heart FM:
I listened to Heart FM live for about 20 minutes. Toby Anstis was the presenter at the time. The music played ranged from popular music in the charts at the moment, then older songs which people will still be familliar with and which have been in the charts before.
There were many adverts inbetween songs. I found nine of the following:
1) More than
2) Carpet mat
3) Paypal
4) Toby carvery
5) EDF energy
6) TKmax
7) Tomtom
8) British gas
9) Vaxwagon



War of the worlds:
The War of the Worlds was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds.
The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a series of simulated "news bulletins", which suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a 'sustaining show' (it ran without commercial breaks), thus adding to the program's quality of realism. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated. In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage. The program's news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode secured Orson Welles' fame.
Moral panic:

• Moral panic starts when the media are placed in position of social control.
• Usually generated by a story that relates to the theory of deviancy.
• Audience understanding is reliant on binary opposites. Focussing on good/bad, any story which represents a social group as 'bad' is placing them a deviant.
• Can produce more social deviancy and doesn't really solve any problems.
• Media organisations such as newspapers relate one event to wider social issues.
• Media coverage increases.
• An example of moral panic, is when one person kills another, then the media suspects that person will strike again and therefore scares the audience.