A look into Radio

Radio is the one of the most important media of communication. Its the
cheapest way to choose and consume media freely in your own home, your car
or portably on your mobile device. The first and foremost use of the radio
industry is to entertain people. People have grown of fond of music through time
and love to hear it.
The radio industry is also highly competitive. You are not only competing with
other radio stations in your area. You are also trying to win listeners away from
online radio stations and music streaming services.

One of the big companies that make up

UK radio is the British Broadcasting
Company (BBC) who own all of our
popular analogue stations. Its funded by
the British public who have to pay for a
radio and TV license which we can then
have the freedom to choose from
whatever we want to listen/watch. BBC
do believe in super serving the
community with local news, guests and
information, which used to be the case
on commercial but is less now. Some
may say this is a good and correct thing.
The BBC also have been known to be
more mature with their content and
more personality encouraged.
Its radios fastest growing industry operating 10 national stations all of which
have high quality music and speech and documentaries. The 5 mainstream radio
stations that you will often hear people tuning into are BBC Radio 1 which
broadcasts a distinctive mix of new music and entertainment for roughly 15-29
year olds. BBC Radio 2 has over thirteen million of the British public often tuning
into listening to the broadcasting of mix music, live pop, rock concerts, comedy
and documentaries. BBC Radio 3 on the other hand focuses more so on Jazz and
world music as well as classical and a mix of speech and documentaries. Also,
BBC Radio 4 focuses widely on mixed speech, offering in-depth news and current
affairs. It broadcast a lot of drama and comedy programmes also which appeals
to a slightly elder generation as opposed to BBC Radio 1. Lastly, BBC Radio 5
Live which broadcasts continuous news and live sports coverage, bringing major
news stories and sporting events as they happen. BBC took in 5.166 billion of
revenue in the 2013/14 turnover and the number of employees grew to 20,950 in
the years 2014/15.
BBC is the best example of cross media as it releases many CDs for example the
BBC Radio 1 live lounge annual cds. BBC covers TV which then go on to produce
many dvds have been brought out especially documentary style which many
people are keen on watching. Also the BBC have published many Cds and books
which also adds to their growth in consumers.

BCC radio also puts on an annual festival like concert every year called radio
ones big weekend which follows the same effective way in involving the
audience more as they hold competitions and quizzes live on air which makes for
phone ins and more people tuning in. Also they have big acts for example Snoop
Dog, Muse and Taylor swift which are all people who have had numerous number
one hits. As a result of this it targets more than just one target audience. It
targets everyone by getting artists within different music genres to play on
stage, attracting more people and that there will something for everyone.
Annually, Radio one put together a live lounge cd where artists get a chance to
promote their new song or album by singing about 3 or 4 songs live in an
acoustic format. Its a chance for artists to either perform the own song and
cover someone elses song, which they usually try to strip down and make it
completely different from the original. The songs chosen by the artist is usually
quite different to the genre of music you would usually associate them with, this
makes people feel almost interested to hear their interpretations of that which
makes the live lounge something a lot of people tune into. A number of retailers
now sell this including online stores such as amazon, and in side shops such as
supermarkets.
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is a public service broadcaster
funded completely off
of the British public. We pay a TV licence fee every
year which caters for TV, radio and online content, 24 every week goes to the
government to fund for this.
Vertical Integration Its when the production company has the ownership of the
means of the production, distribution and exhibition of the certain form of media
by the same company. This way they receive all of the profit from it. An example
of vertical integration radio is from the BBC as they buy their own studios their
own script writers and their own broadcasters. As well as this they also have
something called BBC Worldwide which tries to maximise its profits by investing
in, commercialising and showcasing content through the BBC and around the
world. An example of them investing worldwide in radio is the release of BBC
iPlayer radio. This way it can target more people perhaps people who dont have
a car or dont have access to radio.
55% of national radio listenership is held by the BBCs channels, however news
content for almost all commercial radio stations is provided by Sky News, giving
them 43% of the national audience share for radio. In the US rules for governing
radio allows up to 6 radio stations under one common ownership.

The main source of income for community radio stations is grants, for example
from the Community Radio Fund, the Arts Council, and the Ministry of Defence,
local authorities or the National Lottery.

A lot of community radio stations merge to

create one. Black Country
Community Radio and 102.5 The
Bridge have merged to create
Black Country Radio in
Birmingham. The more people
who support us, the bigger we
become. Its not an easy task to pull in
advertisers or listeners for a new brand
but we need both of those things to keep
the station going. Alex Totney, the current
CEO of The Bridge.

Also there are three available nationally

commercial channels which are Absolute
Radio, Classic FM and talkSPORT. The largest
operator of Commercial Radio is Global Radio
which bought the former media group Gcap
media. GCap media was a British commercial
radio company formed from the merger of
Capital Radio Group. It was merged in May 2005. It was listed on the London
stock exchange (LSE) and in March 2008 the company agreed a takeover by
Global radio who originally started out as a local radio station. The takeover was
for 375 million and in November of that year Global radio discontinued using
the name GCap media.
In the UK the development of digital radio, meant that is was more popular with
audiences who owned a terrestrial license. Of the 300 or so commercial radio
stations operating by the end of 2007 over half were controlled by just four
companies, GCap, Bauer, TLRC and UTV. The majority of local and regional
commercial radio stations are in group ownership, some groups focussing on one
part of the country and others on particular formats while the two largest groups
have a disparate range of services dotted across most of the UK.

The Commercial radio stations get their source of income through advertisement
during their live shows. Roughly what does it cost to advertise on uk radio

500 on a local station

2,500 on a regional station

Upwards from 10,000 on a national station

Global Radio UK is the leading commercial radio broadcaster in

the UK with stations and digital licenses reaching audiences in
more than 30 locations throughout the country. It serves some
of the biggest stations across the UK for example Heart FM,
Capital radio. Talking about the content, most
commercial radio stations will play as much music as possible and
have very few interruptions. It owns Classic FM and Londons most
popular radio station, Capital FM. Absolute Radio is based in London
and plays popular Rock Music and is owned and operated by Bauer
Radio. Classical Music broadcasts classical music, however, as well as
playing elder classical music, the station plays several modern film scores and
video game music. And talkSPORT, owned by UTV radio is the worlds largest
sports station and is an official broadcaster of the Premier League FA cup and
many other sporting events.
Bauer Nedia Group is a large European-based media company headquarted in
Hamburg, Germany. It manages a portfolio of more than 600 magazines, over
400 digital productsand 50 radio and TV stations around the world. This an
example of cross media in Commercial Radio and Bauer owns Absolute radio
which is widely listened by a lot of people dotted arounf the UK. Its also an
example of multinational as we have our own Bauer headquarted in the UK.
Commercial Radio stations, for example Capital Radio puts on an annual concert
for people to go to, one in the winter called jingle bell ball and one in the
summer called summertime ball. This is a great way to get notice from the
general public in that more people are likely to be aware of the radio station. Also
the tickets are limited so if you arent successful in purchasing one online then
during live shows there is a lot of competitions and phone ins for a chance to
win some. This is also very effective as it brings more live listeners in, therefore
getting more recognition from the public.
Within capital radio, the purchased tickets go to several charities. A portion of
tickets sales profit is donated to Globes make some noise, capitals flagship
charity, formally known as help a capital child and help a London chid.

According to stats on Spotify, Hip-hop

is the most listened to genre in the
world. This means that the majority
of people who may listen to radio
could stem from a lot of hip-hop
listeners across the UK tuning into
the extra channels that many
stations have out together. Including
BBC Radio 1 Xtra and Capital Extra
which specialise in urban genres.

As well as
this, Ofcom is responsible for licensing all UK radio, also it has to be regulated
and the website used to manage complaints about radio and TV is called
Ofcom. Their broadcasting code sets out the rules which all television and radio
broadcasters must follow. The decisions made to change something must be
based on evidence and they need to take in account the views of people who
have had an interest in the outcome.

As the power of technology grows, the radio industry could face significant
economic changes, which are mostly neglected in local media. According to
Ofcom, their ownership rules about cross media include the following To
remove the local radio service ownership rules and the local and national radio
multiplex ownership rules. Removal would reduce regulation on an industry
facing difficult market conditions and may allow stations opportunities to be
more viable. Research also shows a majority of consumers are not concerned
about single ownership within local commercial radio.

To liberalise the local cross media ownership rules so that the only restriction is
on ownership of all three of: local newspapers (with 50% plus local market
share); a local radio station; and a regional Channel 3 licence. This liberalisation
will increase the flexibility of local media to respond to market pressures.
Consumers still rely on television, radio and press for news, so going further to
complete removal of the rules could reduce protections for plurality.