Week 3 of Radio Broadcasting proved to be very useful, as were the last couple of weeks. Combining a good mixture of theory and practice, we covered the range of aspects that make up the theory of radio broadcasting.
Comparing the difference between how the News on radio is presented according to the demographic of each stations audiences proved eye-opening, and its easy to see just how much a news story can change from audience to audience. The Radio 4 news report was clearly specific to a somewhat older listening group, whereas the structure of Newsbeat on Radio 1 us deliberately set up to capture the attention of the younger demographic and deliver the important parts of the news story in a shorter time stretch than the Radio 4 news report. This is clear evidence of how delivery of the news differs in style according to whichever demographic they are most likely to appeal to.
Moving on from this, we went on to study exactly what builds up certain different programs on the radio, key differences between them and how these can change from demographic to demographic. Such studies included:
*Looking into Bulletins and how they affect the way we take in news stories. Normally, they are about 2-5 minutes long and give a general overview of the news stories including the Headlines, and cover the basic information of the news stories with all the important elements. They also normally include a voice piece on the story, a two-way with another reporter and various kinds of audio cuts to pack as much information into as short a time-frame as possible.
*Magazine programs and how they have a narrow or wide range in information, but generally have a specific remit. They often cover issues which are both Topic and Timeless....
*Topical Issues relate to current events whereas Timeless issues relate more to a story which can be played on air anytime as they are non-related to current issues.
*Packages normally include an introduction from the news reader and a closing statement on a news story, a sound bed, audio cuts like interviews or vox pops, and are then all 'packaged' together to create a finished article.
We went on to talk about the general formats of the radio, and how stations use formats to "fulfill their remit to the listener". This ensures a broad demographic coverage and that there are clearly defined and refined product, and clarify their market position for advertising.
This then related to what we went on to talk about, which was the Classing System for different demographics (or the A, B, C1, C2, etc Class System), what kind of class people fit into which category and how that affects the style, structure, demographic, content and format of ANY given Radio Station or Show. Essentially, it is a form of categorization that also acts as a measurement of what kind of content and style the Radio Station is likely to carry with it.
With that, we set about the practical side of the weeks lesson, and we made a start on putting a news package of our own together. The task at hand is to choose a story of any kind from the current news or papers, and capture some audio (whether it would be vox pops or actual interviews) in relation to that chosen news story in order to combine that next week with more recorded material to create our own News Package. The task is to remember the integral parts of how news packages are put together, including how they are presented and how the audio cuts fit into them, and how to grab the listeners attention and maintain it for the duration of the report, and put it to use in our own productions.
The subject of my report is the news story about how children now account for one in three admissions to hospital for eating disorders, and I immediately went straight out to visit a hospital to see if I could talk to anyone professional from there and get a recording from them that i could put to use. As it turns out, it is a lot harder than it seems to ask someone in a certain profession to speak to you officially, as i never ended up getting an interview or Q&A with any kind of official pediatric doctor. Instead, I ended up improvising and spoke to some parents and nurses with children about their opinions on the subject and ended up with plenty of usable audio cuts and, after some editing down of the material I had managed to gather, had my fully ready audio cut ready for the session next week.
The practical side of the project certainly seems to be effective, as learning the theory in the lectures and then immediately putting that knowledge to use seems like the best way of retaining what I have learned, and next weeks session should prove to be interesting when the final news package comes together.
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