LO1: Structure of a program

The radio show I will be analysing is TalkSport which is a radio station owned by the company Wireless Group. Wireless group is a top level media company in the United Kingdom and Ireland that specialise in radio brands around the UK. Other examples of radio stations that are owned by Wireless group are Virgin radio and TALKradio. 

TalkSport is a sports based radio station where they talk about a plethora of sports from football to cricket to F1. This means that TalkSport's target audience will be mainly males as more men like sports over women but they will still have female listeners everyday. The social grade that TalkSport targets is the ABC1 category as they advertise match tickets on their show which people with a low social grade won't  be able to afford to go to games. 

TalkSport is distributed across loads of different platforms so people can access it from almost any location. It can be listened to in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland on the radio, TV, mobile app and website so fans always have a place to listen to a TalkSport. TalkSport began as a radio where discussions were made about sports but then in 2001, they managed to get the rights to broadcast live commentary on sporting events so people can know what is happening live when travelling. To reach out to their audience, TalkSport advertise their radio station on Instagram, Twitter and E-mails they send to loyal listeners. This is useful as they can reach a lot of people using social media therefore attracting more listeners for their radio station. 

The regulator that checks the content on TalkSport is RAJAR. RAJAR need to monitor the content so that is appropriate for all ages and cultures. TalkSports listenership is 3 million so they need to ensure all audiences are satisfied. 

TalkSport has many presenters on a different times of the day. The early mornings at 1AM is a radio show called Extra Time presented by Paul Ross where Paul covers the latest news around the sports world. Following that, there is an early breakfast show with Paul Coyte for the people travelling to work early in the morning and then the proper breakfast show begins at 6AM with Laura Woods, Ally McCoist and Gabby Agbonlahor where people will listen to sporting debates in the morning as they get up and get ready for work. Before the afternoon, there is one more radio show in the morning which is where most debates occur. This is hosted by Jim White, Simon Jordan and Trevor Sinclair. In the afternoon, Paul Hawskbee and Andy Jacobs take listeners through all the latest sports news which is then followed by another debating show with Andy Goldstein and Darren Bent. Since TalkSport is a radio station based on sport there is a lot of divided opinions therefore the reason for so many shows where debates take place. In the evening, more sport debate shows are presented by Jamie O’Hara and Jason Candy where people can listen if they are coming home late. With TalkSport, fans can call in to give there opinions on the debate in hand but agree to pay 50p to call. This is one of the ways that TalkSport is commercially successful along with radio adverts.