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.
