Unit 1 - Research Techniques For The Media Industries

1.1 - Understand The Purposes Of Research In The Media Industries
Radio Unit 1.1
Market Research: When you are creating a product, opening a restaurant, selling a new brand of mobile phone, you must assess the market that you are about to enter

Market research is obviously a very important part of anything to do with radio because not only can you see what standard your radio station should be in order to compete also you can gain basic knowledge about the industry and how it works. If you do your market research you can also gain insight into audience awareness and what the audience like in terms of interest and appeal. By conducting market research you can also find out about product reach, which means how far the product appeals in terms of its audience and how far it’s appeal spreads across it. Audience profiling is essentially what the audience are interested in and their attitudes towards things. Consumer behavior is what people buy, when they buy it and their attitude towards it. In radio I suppose it would be what people listen to, when they listen to it and their attitude towards it. Competitor analysis is the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses that potential competitors have. You could gain a lot from competitor analysis because you could also find out what your target audience’s interests and opinions are. Advertising placement is an important thing to consider in radio because if you broadcast an advert about children’s toys at 10 ‘o clock at night it isn’t going to get the desired effect however if you broadcasted it sometime in the morning or after school ends there will be more children listening therefore the advert is significant. Advertising effects is really what it says; the effect that advertising has on people. I suppose you would have to consider after broadcasting an advert if it got the desired effect.


Production Research: There are many things to be considered in production research such as; content, resources, personnel, locations, costs e.t.c. The content of any sort of media is extremely important because not only does it have to entice your audience it also needs to be suitable for the target audience to view.


My Radio Station: You are setting up a new radio station in the area but you need to do some research. I think you can guess what you need to do. Use the headings to structure your research but think inventively about how you present it. You must also research how you plan to set up the project.

My show is probably going to consist of mainly music; the dialogue will be talk of all sorts including discussion about music, current affairs and a whole range of topics. I will obviously play the types of music that I enjoy and even though this covers a wide variety of genres I will be playing music to please my target audience. My show will also contain features to fit with the typical conventions such as interviews, jingles and stings. To help me run the station, in terms of staff I will need: Students, presenters, producers, a station manager, technicians, advertising team and marketing team. The skills they will need to have will be: Communication skills, technical/editing skills and time management skills. The equipment that I will require is as follows: a computer, 2 mixing desks, a set of microphones, a sound proofed radio studio, some voice recorders for recording content, specific radio software, editing machines (computers outside the studio), a compressor, a receiver, an aerial, connecting leads for everything. We can broadcast from within the school. The cost of the equipment altogether would come somewhere in the region of £4,000 - £6,000. For the two weeks streaming costs to PRS for Music would be somewhere in the region of £60 - £70. To acquire a restricted service license for the two weeks we would firstly need to pay the £400 application fee then another £35 for each day on air so altogether it would come to around £750.

I think my plans are realistic given that I receive the necessary support from the appropriate people. If I was asked to scale down my project I would maybe cut the air time to one week instead of two and/or maybe have a smaller more dedicated group of people to aid the shows success. I will aim to broadcast for lunch time, I think this would be a very chilled out part of the day where employees would take a break eat some food and maybe switch on and listen to the radio and seen as a lot of my music is chilled out this would be a good mood to create. I would aim to make podcasts and post them on a blog for people to listen to at their own leisure. My audience will access my show by either tuning into it when it’s on or downloading and listening to one of the podcasts I aim to produce. My competitors for the lunch time show will be competing by suiting their music to the lunch hour and featuring conversation along with games and other such features to fit the time of day which I want to research and into and compete in my own style.


Task 1: You must visit your local council library or university library and find out 3 facts about the population of Pudsey

The population of Leeds is around 750,000
There are more females (369,570) than males (345,834) living in Leeds
Pudsey has a population of 32,391
Name of Book: Britain in Old Photographs: Pudsey
Name of Author: Pudsey Civic Society
Page Numbers: 25, 48 and 49
Year Printed: 1995


Task 2: You must present your information in the following way;
Author: Lawrence G./Year and Page (2007 p. 125)

Author: Pudsey Civic Society / 1995 p. 25, 48, 49


Task 3: You must carry out research to find out the following

• BBC Radio 2 is the UK’s most listened to radio station.
• In the UK, the average person spends about 24.36 hours a week listening to the radio.
• The 4 regions that Galaxy Radio cover are; East Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.
• A restricted service license (RSL) is something granted to radio stations broadcasting within the local community. This license can be granted by Ofcom.
• To get an RSL you must first pay an application fee of £400. I calculated that for one month the license fee would be about £980.
• The PRS for Music is a collecting society for UK songwriters, composers and music publishers. The MCPS are an organisation who pays royalties to composers, songwriters and music publishers when the music they have created is sold. PPL licenses sound recordings and music videos for use in broadcast, public performance and new media.
• A PRS for Music license costs from £66 a year.
• 50w Stereo Transmitter, Digital Processor, Antenna & Cable = £395
• The transmitter cost plus the license cost would be approximately; £1,840


Task 4: You must carry out your own research, to find out...

For this task I am required to find out some information about the listening characteristics in relation to radio of the students in my school. To aid me in doing so I made a questionnaire so that I can collect some qualitative research.
Here is my questionnaire:


Radio Questionnaire

1. How much time per week do you spend listening to radio?
Less Than An Hour___ 2-3hours___ 4-6hours___ More Than 7hours___


2. What is your favourite radio station?
Galaxy___ Radio 1 ___ Radio Aire___ Radio 2___ Other__________


3. How do you listen to the radio?
Original Radio___ Car Radio___ Digital TV___ Internet___ Other_____

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To collect some research in terms of this questionnaire I am not going to go about it in the classical way of handing them out, collecting them back in and making a graph, I'm going to take a more media influenced approach. I'm going to get a voice recorder and ask a number of people the questions and record their answers, then feature the sound clip in my PowerPoint presentation. Here's the sound clip;






Task 5: You must undertake research to find out...

• There’s a few obvious reasons why Terry Wogan’s breakfast show is the most popular in the country;
1. Terry Wogan appeals to a number of different audiences
2. His show broadcasts at breakfast, the time of day when the most people are listening to the radio
3. Terry Wogan has been knighted therefore people may feel like they’re listening to more than just a radio show, they might even feel privileged
4. His show is on BBC Radio 2 which is a nationwide broadcasting radio station

• According to numerous sources here is some information about being a radio program producer
1. They are responsible for the content of the program
2. Generate and research ideas for programs
3. Developing content and writing material for scripts
4. I would imagine it to be a very responsibility and organisation driven job

• Seen as I’ve been a radio presenter myself I can explain what it’s like
1. It’s a place in the studio that requires the upmost responsibility and ability to think on your feet
2. It can be quite nerving but I think one of the qualities you must have is to ignore that feeling and not let it get in the way of presenting
3. Organisation skills are the key to success because if you organise yourself for example; making a playlist. It frees you up to concentrate on things like your script

• The future could hold a number of things for radio. It’s demise being one of them, although people have been saying this since the invention of the television and to this day radio has more listeners than TV has viewers. I personally think this is due to all the ways you can listen to radio these days and I for one can only see more ways to tune-in in the future.


Task 9: You will also perform a short presentation, which will be filmed and added to your blog. In your presentation, you should include any relevant research which should be summarised and linked to your proposal. Your proposal Should cover the type of radio station you will be launching and why?