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MED327 Radio Broadcasting

Z100

The first station I analysed was Z100. They are a 'hit music station', which broadcasts to the area of New York City, USA and are owned by the infamous iHeartRadio group. As the Head of Production at Spark, I often use a service called Reelworld, which provides audio and some templates to create imaging, they work closely with iHeartRadio and subsequently, many of the imaging templates have 'examples', using content and VOs from Z100, which was one of the reasons that inspired me to look at this station.

In terms of format and style, this station is in many ways, the equivalent to Capital in the UK, in fact it has been said many times in the past that Capital is 'modelled' on the iHeart hit music network, for many reasons of which will come apparent in this blog post. The music is very rhythmic, with remixes of slow songs sometimes being introduced, in fact, many of the songs that were remixed, such as the SeeB remix of Coldplay's 'Hymn For The Weekend', are also played on Capital. The station is very much music focused, with the apparent aim to 'cram' as many songs in a slot before an ad break in comparison with other stations in the area.

In terms of presenter style, in general daytime hours, the links are very short and slick, with some links only lasting around 20 seconds. There is less content and links are generally more about the artists on the station, a website or social media tease, or a competition, something which is persistent on the station. The only exception to this during daytime is breakfast and drive. Another way they are very similar to Capital, or rather Capital is very similar to them, is their summer and winter concerts, known as Z100's Summer Ball and Jingle Bell, (likewise – Capital's Summertime Ball & Jingle Bell Ball). Some other points are Z100's Cash Giveaway, where the listener is required to give a keyword, (Capital's Cash Call – listeners give a 'phrase that pays') and TOHs featuring, 'Z100 – an iHeartRadio Station', (Capital's TOHs featuring 'This is Capital – from Global'). Speaking of which, it is apparent iHeart want be known by the station's listeners, not only by the on air branding, but also by the website being z100.iheart.com and rather than having a dedicated app for the station, listeners can download an iHeart app which will allow them to listen to Z100 as well as other stations owned by the network, such as Kiis in Los Angeles.

Looking at the Z100 website, it is clear that the website is very much also focused on the artists, (with the majority of the front page being artist news), as well as contests, the playlist and an on air schedule page.

Radio Flaixbac

The next station I listened to was Radio Flaixbac, (pronounced 'Flash Back'). Flaixbac is a Spanish commercial regional station, which broadcasts to Catalonia and Andorra, and is based in Barcelona. It's main music format is chart, focusing on European and US hits. The first thing that is clear is that the music is a mix of both english speaking music, as well as other languages including, unsurprisingly, Spanish. The show I listened to was 'Formula Flaixbac' with presenter Andreu Presas. Taking the last 4 songs played, Spanish band Blaumat are currently playing as I write this. Further more, this band is in fact from Catalonia, technically making it a local track. Prior to this however, Clean Bandit & Jess Glynne's 'Rather Be' was played, as well as Shawn Mendes' 'Holding Me Back', Ed Sheeran's 'Shape of You' and Neiked's 'Sexual'. Whilst the final three of these artists have featured in the UK chart, Ed Sheeran is English, Shawn Mendes is Canadian whilst Neiked is Spanish.

Whilst it is difficult to work out exactly what the presenter style is, (due to the Spanish speaking presenters), it is clear that there remains a focus on the musical artists, with the names of artists being heard in links regularly, whether they have just been played or not. The majority of links heard were generally also less than a minute each, with music dominating the majority of the time spent listening. Heading over to their social media pages also told a similar story. Looking at their Twitter page, there wasn't a great deal of actual content from the station, rather mostly artist and showbiz news, with the most recent tweet being “Ja és aquí el nou tema de ‪@ShawnMendes”, and an article about his latest single, 'There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back'. While were no official statics available, it would seem that the target demographic would be something of around 18-35, Klear, an online demographic service states that the average listener age is 29, and that their engagment level is 'Very High'.

Ne1fm

The next station I listened to was Ne1fm, a community station based in Newcastle. The station launched in 2007, with a community license extended till 2022 and is run entirely by volunteers. The first point of interest is that the entire format of the station is a lot less tight compared with commercial radio. When I first tuned in, it was around 1.30PM and the station was in fact in automation till 2PM, (with the breakfast show finishing at 10AM), this is quite a large period of time to be in automation, especially when compared with a station like Spark. I then tuned in after 2PM however there was still no presenter on air, suggesting either the schedule was out of date or the presenter had not turned up.

Although it sounds bad to say, but you can tell almost straight away from listening that you are not listening to the highest budget radio station in the world. There was a severe lack of imaging on the station for starters, with the majority of music being segued without any sweepers/IDs inbetween. The only imaging I did actually hear was a quick 'Ne1fm' stab after the adverts. There were also no promos and no news at the top of the hour. Eventually I did hear some promos, the first one was just local voices saying the name whilst the second one was a promo for the Saturday Sports Show, this promo sounded butterly produced. A third promo followed this for Tuesday Afternoons, the amount of promos in a row also suggested a community rather than an Ne1fm stab, which actually sounded as though it had a professional voiceover on it. An interesting point I also picked up on was that unlike many community stations, Ne1fm actually ran adverts. Some of these were clearly locally produced, such as the one for Newcastle Volunteering Centre which came across as poorly produced, however there was also some national adverts being ran, such as an FSCS advert which I have also heard on commercial stations such as Capital and Heart.

In terms of music, there seemed to be no set format with a mixture of top 40, new and old. The most recent song I heard was played was 'Who Let The Dogs Out'. Everything combined suggested that there may not have been any set target age range, but rather a range of musical audiences both mainstream and niche.

Bibliography

Albarran, Alan B. Media Management And Economics Research In A Transmedia Environment. 1st ed. Print.

Fogg, ally, Phil Korbel, and Cathy Brooks. Community Radio Toolkit. 1st ed. Manchester: Radio Regen, 2005. Print.

Shuker, Roy. Understanding Popular Music. 1st ed. London [u.a.]: Routledge, 2005. Print.