LO1- Types of radio stations

Types of radio stations:

Public- Public radio stations are funded by license fees from the publics and is funded by the government which means they cannot explicitly promote products on their stations and in terms of competitions, they cannot offer cash prices only exclusive prices like tickets for an event. Public radio has a listenership of 14.9 million which is very high. BBC is an example of a public radio station. BBC is a conglomerate so it owns loads of radio subsidiaries such as Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 which all contain different content. For example BBC Radio 1 is split into sections. Very early morning will start with music playing for people are out till late or doing nightshifts but at 5AM there is an early breakfast show for the people who need to get up early for work. Following this, the Radio 1 breakfast show with Gregg James begins which is a jolly, high energy programme to help wake people up in the morning when travelling to work. In between the transitions from music to breakfast show or music to interview there will occasionally be short inputs of news to keep people up to date with what is happening currently. Breakfast is the most popular time for radio as that is when most people are travelling to work or are waking up, turning the radio on when making breakfast. After 12PM, more guests are introduced onto radio shows ad there might be some radio quizzes for listeners to do. Listenership  of Radio 1 will increase again around the time most people go home from work which is around 5pm. This will be a recurring cycle everyday. Radio 2 differs from Radio 1 as the target audience is much more older. Radio 1 has a target audience of teenagers and young adults as that is why they play music relevant to that age group. Radio 2 listenership is aged 50+ so they may potentially play some more old school music which older folks would prefer. Also, Radio 2 is much more slow paced than Radio 1 and is presented in a much calmer way. This comes across as more mature which is understandable as the listenership is older than the listenership of Radio 1. Radio 3 is much more based on classical music or Jazz music. 

Regional- Regional radio stations are either public or commercial, instead of being targeted at a national audience it is aimed at a particular region. BBC Radio Sheffield is a regional radio station as it is accessible for the people in South Yorkshire and is targeted at locals of that area. The radio station has a weekly listenership of 177,000 people who are mostly aged 50+. In the Early morning, Dotum Adebayo is presenting for BBC radio Sheffield and BBC radio 5 with Jason Rosam taking over at 5AM. The breakfast show begins at 6AM and is presented by Toby Forster. The breakfast show often contains guests and if the presenter is away, Becky Measures sits in. The afternoon contains two radio shows for example for the 29th of March, the Golden years will start at 2PM and the Howard Pressman will begin at 3PM. Finally, in the evening there is more focus on sports with football heaven starting at 6PM and the Sports academy taking over at 7PM. The music that is played throughout the radio station is mixture of genres that accounts for most audiences. 

Not for profit- Not for profit radio stations are developed to not make profit so they hire volunteers to keep things running. They can be found in Universities and hospitals which means a lot of radio DJ's started their careers in not for profit radio as it is cheap as there is much pressure to provide for a large audience. The content that they do provide is tailored to there listenership so that means that they base what they present off what their audience likes. An example of not for profit radio station is Sine FM. Sine FM is a radio station based in Doncaster started in 2007 by a company called Higher Rhythm and they have a variety of content available for their audience. Sine FM actually allows people to come in at anytime and make their own radio show which therefore shows the high diversity of content. The schedule for Sine FM is where radio shows change hourly so the can fit as much content in at once so they can cater for all audiences. 

National commercial- National commercial radio stations contain advertisements and endorsements as they aim to make profit from their content. An example of a commercial radio station is KISS which was started 1985. KISS is owned by Bauer media, a conglomerate that own a large portion of media companies. The target audience for KISS is adults aged 18-34 and it is split between both males and females. In the early hours on KISS Radio, it beings with an hour long mix of songs for people doing shifts or travelling home late from work. There are two radio shows in the early morning and they are with presenters Freddie and Tatum who will talk about latest hits and discuss music. The breakfast show is hosted by Jordan and Perri ready for people travelling to work who are in need of little bit of energy. In the afternoon, there are two presenters who take over from 1PM to 7PM who will play music and include short inputs of news so people know the latest about what is happening around the world. Finally, in the evening, DJ Q takes over to DJ some music to a late audience who maybe are coming home from work or who are relaxing in their house.

Community radio- Community radio is a form of not for profit radio station where local people broadcast their own programmes. It will cover a small area maybe around 5km which means they can cater for whole communities such as ethnic groups, religions or lifestyles. An example of a community radio station is Black Country Radio. Black Country Radio is owned by Waterfront CIC and was introduced in 2008 with a target audience aged 30-55 years old. Music from an older generation is likely to be played since the target audience is quite old, they will feel nostalgic listening to the radio station. Finally, in the evening Black Country Radio plays slower music as people will be travelling home while tired so they may find high intensity music quite obnoxious. 

Internet radio- The final type of radio station I will talk about is internet radio. Internet radio Distributed on the internet so you can go global as people across the world only need to be connected to the internet to access the radio show. An example of a internet radio station is Gold Radio which began in 2007 after Web 2.0 was introduced. Gold Radio plays more classical music from some of best artists from the past decades which include Elvis Presley, David Bowie and The Beatles. This means that the age range of listeners will be 40-60 as that type of music will be nostalgic for them so they will enjoy it.