Unit 9: AO1- Commercial Radio
Learning Objective: To investigate the commercial radio industry in the UK.
Task 1
What is meant by commercial radio?
Ofcom (Office of
Communications) deal with most forms of communication in the UK. The organisation
has control of: Television, Telecoms and Postal Sectors.[1] It
is a government approved authority and controls: Licencing, Codes and policies,
Research and the protection of the radio spectrum.
In commercial radio, Ofcom
hold the licences to unused stations. These are then delegated by holding so
called Beauty-contests to determine what applicant will be granted the
permission to broadcast in that area.[2]
This is done by the comparing all applicants proposed formats and the outcome
of their research to decide the overall demand for that type of broadcast.
Task 2
List some Commercial Stations from Major Cities Situated in the UK:
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City
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Station/s
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London
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Capital FM (95.8) Choice FM (96.9) KISS FM (100)
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Edinburgh
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Absolute Radio AM (1215) Castle FM (98.8) Forth One FM (97.3)
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Manchester
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XFM Manchester (97.7) Key (103) Galaxy (102)
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Birmingham
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Free Radio (96.4) Heart Birmingham (96-107) Real Radio (99.6 FM)
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Liverpool
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Radio City (96.7) talkSPORT(1107) Juice FM (107.6)
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Remit
Is the purpose that the radio
station needs to fulfil.
Station Format/Public File
Also known as a Public
Inspection File, they are put in place by the radio station when they submit
their application so it is clear what they want to broadcast over the radio
station. It is vital that each radio station has a Public file because it is
required by a Broadcasting Authority under its jurisdiction.
Bauer Media
Is a conglomerate that owns
many media related subsidiaries in the categories: Magazine, Radio, TV, Mobile
and Online.
Bauer
Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group, Europe’s largest privately owned
publishing Group. The Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 300
magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations.
Bauer
Media joined the Bauer Media Group in January 2008 following acquisition of
Emap PLC’s consumer and specialist magazines, radio, TV, online and digital
businesses. Collectively, the Group employs some 6,400 people.
Bauer
Media is a multi-platform UK-based media Group consisting of many companies
collected around two main divisions – Magazines and Radio - widely recognised
and rewarded as being industry innovators.
Our
business is built on influential media brands with millions of personal
relationships with engaged readers and listeners. Our strategy is to connect
audiences with excellent content through our broad multi-touch point brand
platforms, wherever and whenever and however they want. Our wide portfolio of
influential brands gives us advantages over pure play magazine or radio
competitors.
The radio stations that I
will be looking at are: KISS FM (100) and Fourth One FM (97.3)
KISS Public File
News Bulletins
News bulletins run every half
an hour during Rickie, Melvin & Charlie in the Morning and two main hourly
bulletins at 5pm and 6pm, containing National stories, Entertainment and
Sporting stories relevant to the KISS format. KISS also broadcasts
entertainment news bulletins throughout the day along with specific Traffic
& Travel information every hour during peak time.
Recent News Stories Covered
KISS covers a broad range of
stories in our breakfast news service. Entertainment news covering events like
The Brits, The Mobos, film premieres and celebrities like Cheryl Cole to
technology, environmental and even political news. During the Breakfast and
Drive shows, KISS also informs commuters about jams and tube congestion, each
hour, with our Traffic & Travel information.
The News Team
KISS morning, afternoon and
emergency coverage is provided by Bauer News headed by John Pickford based at
Key103 in Manchester.
Automated Programming
Automation on KISS is only in
some overnight shows – a total of 4 hours during the week hosted by James
Merritt and 6 hours on the weekend, hosted by Neev and Clara.
Programming
KISS programming is aimed 24
hours a day at under 30 year olds. The KISS schedule is broadcast on FM across
London, the East of England and the West. See localness guidelines at Ofcom.
KISS has the ability to local serve specific areas for key programming events
by providing split programming although this is not required under its Ofcom
format details.
Events / Charities Support or Coverage
KISS regularly supports many
youth related charities and community help services. We run our own academies
to encourage people to get involved in media and aspects of media that interest
them as a career. We’ve recently supported the Trident ‘Stop The Guns’
campaign. KISS is also involved in local events on a community level by
assigning our street team to offer support – many of these events happen off-air
– our involvement is local.
Recent Programme Highlights
Nights on KISS are dedicated
to ‘specialist programming’, dipping into genres like Drum & Bass, Grime,
Reggae, House, Breakbeat and Hip Hop. Our world famous DJ’s regularly break new
music onto the scene and are often joined in the studio by the artists making
the music. As part of our dedication to Summer Festivals and live music, KISS
is regularly covering events like Wireless, Ibiza opening parties and SW4 –
with many more scheduled in for 2011. Any other issues or areas of interest
likely to impact on localness.
The KISS Street team is
regularly on the streets of its FM transmission areas at local events for
Sport, Music and Education. We often encourage our listeners to improve
education and offer career advice by pointing them in the direction of helpful
organisations and offering information on this website. If you would like to
contact our Street Team, email streetteam100@kissfmuk.com.
Station Format
Rhythmic / Dance – A dance
music station primarily aimed at young Londoners 15 – 25.
Fourth One
News
Bulletin Schedule including which bulletins provide local news and which
provide only UK-wide bulletins.
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Local Bulletins (including
Scottish News and Sport at certain times)
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Monday – Friday
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0000, 0600 to 1900, 2200
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Saturday
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0700 to 2200
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Sunday
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0700 to 1200
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National Bulletins
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Saturday
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0600
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Sunday
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0600
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The News
team
The
average number of hours of automated programming within weekday daytimes and
within daytimes on Saturdays and Sundays:
None
None
The
amount of local programming per day produced by the station:
Monday to Friday 13 hours
Saturday 16 hours
Sunday 4 hours
Monday to Friday 13 hours
Saturday 16 hours
Sunday 4 hours
Events/charities
support or coverage:
The
annual Radio Forth Awards took place on 10th November 2011. This year we moved
venue to the Edinburgh’s iconic Usher Hall; which enabled 1000 listeners to
attend the event. The event saw, Matt Cardle, Melanie C, Pixie Lott and The
Wanted all appear to collect awards and perform at the ceremony.
The event is designed to give listeners a chance to recognise local community, business and sporting heroes in addition to voting for the musicians who impressed them most last year.
Award categories range from top teacher, best pub or club, leading tourist attraction, best Fringe performance to the best place to work. At the event, local winners accept their prizes alongside some of the top names in music and entertainment.
The highlights can be viewed here: http://www.forthone.com/on-air/radio-forth-awards-2011-highlights-video/
In August we presented our 4th ‘Radio Forth on the Fringe’ which was staged over two nights at the Edinburgh Playhouse. The event featured some of the very best in music, comedy and entertainment, bringing together a slice of all aspects of The Edinburgh Fringe. During the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe we also introduced to our audience ‘Front Room Fringe’ – where we took award winning Fringe artists such as Barry Cryer, Patrick Monahan, Bob Downes to name a few to perform in listener’s homes.
Radio Forth’s Cash for Kids has been helping local children for 30 years. To date we have raised well over £3,000,000 and have helped over 870,000 children. In the past year we have raised £300,000 to improve the lives of local children who may be disadvantaged through poverty, have helped provide medical equipment to improve the lives of disabled children and have helped with funding for local organisations who work with children.
In May of this year we ran a campaign to raise funds for the new Teenage Cancer Trust Unit at The Western in Edinburgh and were delighted to raise £80,000. Our very first outdoor challenge “White Water Rafting” at Aberfeldy raised £10,000 to provide motorized wheelchairs and scooters for disabled children.
We are well on target to hit our target of half a million this year and this is done to the efforts from our listeners and our many corporate partners who work tirelessly to raise funds for Radio Forth’s Cash for Kids.
The event is designed to give listeners a chance to recognise local community, business and sporting heroes in addition to voting for the musicians who impressed them most last year.
Award categories range from top teacher, best pub or club, leading tourist attraction, best Fringe performance to the best place to work. At the event, local winners accept their prizes alongside some of the top names in music and entertainment.
The highlights can be viewed here: http://www.forthone.com/on-air/radio-forth-awards-2011-highlights-video/
In August we presented our 4th ‘Radio Forth on the Fringe’ which was staged over two nights at the Edinburgh Playhouse. The event featured some of the very best in music, comedy and entertainment, bringing together a slice of all aspects of The Edinburgh Fringe. During the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe we also introduced to our audience ‘Front Room Fringe’ – where we took award winning Fringe artists such as Barry Cryer, Patrick Monahan, Bob Downes to name a few to perform in listener’s homes.
Radio Forth’s Cash for Kids has been helping local children for 30 years. To date we have raised well over £3,000,000 and have helped over 870,000 children. In the past year we have raised £300,000 to improve the lives of local children who may be disadvantaged through poverty, have helped provide medical equipment to improve the lives of disabled children and have helped with funding for local organisations who work with children.
In May of this year we ran a campaign to raise funds for the new Teenage Cancer Trust Unit at The Western in Edinburgh and were delighted to raise £80,000. Our very first outdoor challenge “White Water Rafting” at Aberfeldy raised £10,000 to provide motorized wheelchairs and scooters for disabled children.
We are well on target to hit our target of half a million this year and this is done to the efforts from our listeners and our many corporate partners who work tirelessly to raise funds for Radio Forth’s Cash for Kids.
Recent
programmes and/or news highlights:
2011 was
another busy year for Forth One.
Boogie, Arlene and Dingo from ‘Boogie in the Morning’ entertained our listener’s with content such as ‘Boogie’s Million Manzillion’. A ‘off the cuff’ idea that grew, went viral & raised over £14 000 for Cash For Kids. They also launched ‘Wotsit’ to the breakfast show and this has quickly become one of our most talked about features.
The 2010 Xmas BITM hit was ‘Baby It’s Morningside’ – who knows what we can expect in December this year!
The Big Saturday Show welcomed more listeners with the show being sent out across 7 other radio stations – Saturday mornings aren’t quite the same!
A parody song by Forth One mid-morning presenter Grant Stott has become an internet hit after he performed it for the first time at the station’s Radio Forth Awards.
The song ‘That’s Fife’ – a skit on Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’ – stole the show at the ceremony and has notched up more than 65,000 YouTube views
The station will end 2011 with the Jingle Ball and Junior Jingle Ball and we we’re once again a part of the ‘Christmas in Edinburgh’ celebrations and the famous Hogmanay celebrations.
Our events throughout 2011 were enjoyed by thousands of our listeners and we have even more events planned for 2012 – check out the website to see what they are!
Boogie, Arlene and Dingo from ‘Boogie in the Morning’ entertained our listener’s with content such as ‘Boogie’s Million Manzillion’. A ‘off the cuff’ idea that grew, went viral & raised over £14 000 for Cash For Kids. They also launched ‘Wotsit’ to the breakfast show and this has quickly become one of our most talked about features.
The 2010 Xmas BITM hit was ‘Baby It’s Morningside’ – who knows what we can expect in December this year!
The Big Saturday Show welcomed more listeners with the show being sent out across 7 other radio stations – Saturday mornings aren’t quite the same!
A parody song by Forth One mid-morning presenter Grant Stott has become an internet hit after he performed it for the first time at the station’s Radio Forth Awards.
The song ‘That’s Fife’ – a skit on Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’ – stole the show at the ceremony and has notched up more than 65,000 YouTube views
The station will end 2011 with the Jingle Ball and Junior Jingle Ball and we we’re once again a part of the ‘Christmas in Edinburgh’ celebrations and the famous Hogmanay celebrations.
Our events throughout 2011 were enjoyed by thousands of our listeners and we have even more events planned for 2012 – check out the website to see what they are!
Any
other issues or areas of interest likely to impact on localness:
None
None
The Station Format
Forth One plays a variety of music from today and from the past 15 years or so. We delve slightly further back in time some days, with Grant Stott’s weekday 10 at 10. For further music enquiries, please contact our Head of Music sam.jackson@radioforth.com.
Shamira Unit 9 Feedback
ReplyDeleteAO1 Commercial
Shamira
Well done. You have made a really good start to this unit. You have explained a wide range of concepts in regards to radio ownership.
Overall, the key areas you need to address are:
1. The detail in which you write. You need to decide which information is most important, and cover it in depth. Leave everything else out. Just because it is on a website, doesn't mean you need to include it.
You need to explain what a commercial station actually is. You have mentioned how they must bid for a licence, but you must also include information about the way they are a funded. How are they different from something like the BBC? What are their main aims? Think about business studies. Why do these businesses xist?
You have mentioned some major commercial stations in the UK, but you also explain how they are part of a larger organisation that owns a range of stations. Explain that it is often the case that big companies will run stations across the country, but to the listener they sound like a local station.
When you write about Bauer, you need to make sure you write in your own words. It's a bit a of a give-away when you write " Our business is built on influential media brands with millions of personal relationships with engaged readers and listeners. Our strategy is to connect audiences with excellent content through our broad multi-touch point brand platforms, wherever and whenever and however they want."
All I really need to know is what are the significant things about Bauer. What else do they own? Which stations do they run?
When you talk about the different stations, such as Kiss etc you need to be really clear about what a Station format is. It might be worth mentioning Ofcom here, and the restrictions a format and licence places on a station.
I don't need to know everything that happens on a station, just give me a feel for the type of station that it is, their content and who it is aimed at.
This work isn't quite up to merit yet - you need to make sure that your writing is clearly in your own words, and that you demonstrate a clear, detailed understanding of the topic.
Mr Monahan