MED5075 - Radio Station Format

For my radio station I have decided to create a format around the community of Irish people in Birmingham and the surrounding regions. I feel that this is an extremely large community and has a lot to offer. The Irish community have been known in Birmingham since the 1600s and by 2000 there was a recorded number of over 80, 000 people living in the city from Ireland.

“Many people had migrated to the UK from Ireland to escape famine and poverty during the mid 1800s. During the 1950s, Irish citizens migrated to the UK to seek to employment. Many were manual labourers who helped build the roads and buildings in Birmingham's 1960s re-birth. As economic decline hit Ireland in the 1980s, young Irish people again came to the city, many of them found employment in the catering and service sector. To begin with a lot of Irish lived in the poorer parts of the city, like Deritend, Digbeth and Sparkbrook. As their fortunes began to grow, they moved out of the inner city, to the suburbs of Erdington and Hall Green.”

Programme ScheduleFor every day I would like to have at least one or two different specialist shows/themes along with a rotating show from each presenter at the station. I would like hourly news and weather updates as I feel this is something that my target audience of 20-40 year olds would like to hear regularly.

For the specialist programmes, I have created a few ideas for shows that I would like to be aired –

Covers – an hour show dedicated to songs that have been covered by irish acts or songs by irish acts that have been covered by well known celebrities. I feel that this would be a very popular show, as a lot of audiences enjoy hearing different versions of songs by popular artists.

Electronic Fridays – As Friday is usually a popular night for parties and celebrations, I will create a show that caters for upbeat, innovate electronic music as I feel this would add a bit of diversity to the overall station and would cater for a niche audience within the digbeth creative area.

Cheesy Saturdays – Again like Friday nights, Saturday nights are also popular for entertainment reasons and a two hour show with retro music from the 70’s all the way through to the 90’s would create a nostalgic memory for listeners and be easy to listen to at parties for instance.

New Music Mondays - i think its very important to constantly be listening and searching for new music and feel that as a radio station we should be promoting the best upcoming artists and bands. I would try to include mainly new Irish acts as I feel this is something the target audience would be interested it. It would also allow for collobration between Irish based record labels and management as we would be promoting their material to a specific audience that would be interested,

with possible opportunities of performances at the station and competition prises relating to the artists/bands – for example, a signed EP or poster.

Music Categories For the radio station, I plan to include 5 different music categories. These consist of A List, B List, Gold, Recurrent and New Music.

A List – this will consist of the latest new songs in mainstream music that I feel are appropriate for the station. These songs are guaranteed to gain the highest number of plays per week (20 for example)Hozier – Someone NewKodaline – The One

B List – These are songs that are relatively new and that will gain a high number of plays per week, just below a song on the A List (15 for example). Love Again – Rae Morris Chasing Rubies – Hudson Taylor

Gold – these are songs that are from decades spanning from the 70’s to 90’s. Ray of Light – Madonna Don’t Stop Me Now – Queen

Recurrent – these are songs that will be from the last 10 years in mainstream music that will be played now and again, for example songs that have been quite successful and are still relevant to listeners taste. Roar – Katy Perry Thinking of Me – Olly Murs

New Music - These songs will be by lesser known artists and will be a chance for a first time radio play. I would like to mainly have irish acts as I have explained before as I feel this would be appropriate to the radio stations overall theme. I Wish I Knew You Better – Pretty ChildBackfirePlans – Fort Hope

Core Artists of popular Irish Music U2 Sinead O’Connor Snow Patrol General Fiasco The Script Enya Hudson Taylor Two Door Cinema Club

Mission Statement To provide a high class, professional and enjoyable, community based

radio service for people living in the areas that the station provides for. To represent the Irish culture in Birmingham and its surrounding regions

and for people that don’t have a voice through other forms. To broadcast programs to a certain niches within our target audience

Clocks

Breakfast – I decided for the breakfast show to have mainly A List songs. I felt that this was important as from previous research, breakfast is one of the most popular shows at the

station, and by having a lot of alist songs, it will allow auidneces to know that the station plays current music, especially at times where people are busy and moving so hearing mainstream popular songs would be most appealing for them. I also decided to have only two talking sections as I felt that listneres at this morning time wouldn’t want to hear a lot of talking from presenters. I added 10 minutes of talking near the end of the show so that the presenter could talk about related entertainment news, or play a competiton with a phone in listener for example.

Weekday Evening - I decided that as a lot of people would be driving home from work etc, that by having a lot of gold and recurrent songs, it would create a sense of nostalgia for a lot of the audience, hearing songs that they once enjoyed etc. I also didn’t want a lot of talking throughout so I limited the

presenters to speak for 6 minutes only as I felt people at this time in the day would not like to be bombarded with information and a lot of talking. I decided to end on a few A List songs as I felt this would be a great way to end the show on a new song that is very popular.

Midnight to Dawn – after listening to various different radio stations around this time frame, I noticed that a lot of the songs have a much slower tempo and are more mellow. I figured that this was because some people may find music in the background of their room trying to sleep relaxing etc, or people may be on late night drives and want soothing music. I looked at a radio station called Cool FM where they have a late night segment called ‘Cool goes Quiet’ from 11pm – 3am. The show is very popular and is one of their most listened shows, simply because a lot of slow, sad, romantic etc songs are played. I decided to have recurrent as I would like to play recent slow songs that people would still remember, with a few songs from the Gold playlist also and not many new recent songs from the A List.

Running Order – Breakfast

8:00 – NEWS

8:03 – ADS

8:06 – Homesick - Catfish and the Bottlemen (A List)

8:10 - Trouble (feat. Jennifer Hudson) - Iggy Azalea (A List)

8:14 – VOICEBREAK

8:19 – Believe - Mumford & Sons (A List)

8:24 - See You Again (feat. Charlie Puth) - Wiz Khalifa (A List)

8:29 - The Night Is Still Young - Nicki Minaj (A List)

8:34 - Livin’ on a Prayer’ - Bon Jovi (Gold)

8:37 - Ship To Wreck- Florence + the Machine (B List)

8:41 - King Kunta - Kendrick Lamar (B List)

8:45 – VOICEBREAK

8:55 – Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran & Rudimental (A List)

Running Order - Weekday Evening

5:00 – News

5:03 – Ads

5:06 – B List – Warriors - Imagine Dragons

5:10 – B List – Our Eyes - Lucy Rose

5:16 – Talk

5:18 – A List – Lean On (feat. MØ) - Major Lazer x DJ Snake

5:22 – A List – Kids In The Dark -All Time Low

5:26 – Gold – Vogue – Madonna

5:30 – Gold – Gold Digger – Kanye West

5:35 – Recurrent – Firework – Katy Perry

5:38 – Recurrent – Money on My Mind – Sam Smith

5:42 – Recurrent – The Sweet Escape – Gwen Stefani

5:48 – VOICEBREAK

5:51 – A List - Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran & Rudimental (A List)

5:55 – A List – Preach - M.O.

Running Order – Midnight to Dawn

00:00 - News

00:03 – Ads

00:06 – Recurrent – Make You feel my Love - Adele

00:11 – Recurrent – She Will Be Loved – Maroon 5

00:16 – Recurrent – My Immortal – Evanesance

00:19 – Recurrent – If You’re not the One – Daniel Bedingfield

00:22 – VOICEBREAK

00:24 – A List – Believe - Mumford & Sons

00:28 – Gold – She’s like the Wind – Patrick Swayze

00:32 – Gold – Unbreak my Heart – Toni Braxton

00:37 – Recurrent - It Will Rain – Bruno Mars

00:41 – Recurrent – California King Bed – Rihanna

00:45 – Recurrent – Home – Michael Buble

00:49 – VOICEBREAK

00:51 – Gold – Wishing on a Star – Rose Royce

00:55 – Gold – Too Lost in you – Sugababes

Rules

1. Never follow an artists of a particular gender by the same gender – eg. Female to female.

This rule is important as the radio station aims to deliver songs from all different types of artists and by constantly playing one gender the radio station wont be able to show enough variety of different types of music.

2. Only play an A List song every 4 hours

This rule is important as it means that listeners won’t get fed up of constantly hearing the same song over and over. This is why we create

the A List so that popular songs can still be heard regularly but not to the extent that they will be annoying to our listeners.

3. Play an A list song first and last at popular times throughout the day

This is so that each show begins and ends with a popular song so that listeners will be enticed to listen to the rest of the show and the next show at the end. This is also a good way of letting the audience know what type of music will be played throughout that show.

4. Only play an artist’s song every 3 hours

Again this is so that the audience at home won’t get annoyed by certain songs by certain artists being played too much. For example, Iggy Azealia had two hit singles in the summer of 2014 – Problem with Ariana Grande and her own track Fancy with Charlie XCX. Both these songs were commercially very popular and were constantly played on television stations and radio networks. By only playing one song by one artist every 3 hours it means that our listeners won’t get bored by hearing the same voice over and over.

5. Don’t play an upbeat song straight after a sad song or vice versa.

This is so that the contrast between two songs played straight after each other isn’t too drastic that it makes listeners turn off. For example, it would not sound great playing a upbeat happy song (Uptown Funk- Bruno Mars) straight after playing a slow sad song (Make you feel my Love – Adele). It would be better to bridge the gap between a happy and sad song by playing on after a link or add break instead.