Intro to Radio Course (Class 2)

Our first task was to write up a short script then back announce a song we had chosen, then read an advertisement then forward announce the second song we picked. Sounds simple enough, although when nerves hit and the butterflies that live in my tummy on these special occasions start to emerge, everything becomes a little mumbo jumbo and my voice becomes shaky and I can feel my heart hitting hard across my chest. The Next Gen system was relatively easy to use but learning new software is always a challenge. We were all left in the room by ourselves whilst the others would listen outside as we were being recorded. Yes it was no competition, but we all wanted to perform well. I’d say I did an average job except Simon noticed that I used a pun with the song title of the song and I also should not tell the listener how long that I will be presenting for eg. “101.3 MIXX FM that was Love Today, Mika. Adriana here taking you through till nine, I hope you have loved today as much as I have?”. These were big NO NO’s as puns were old school and instead of telling the listener how long you will be presenting for they would rather you use those words to say something else. So those were lessons learnt.

 

We also looked at radio audience measurement and how seriously it is taken at a commercial radio station. We discussed the importance of Nielsen Media Research (Survey Company) and how they are a multi-million dollar company that aids radio broadcasters with guidance into which demographics listen to which shifts, radio stations etc. The current method of audience measurement is done via a diary system that the selected person has to carry around for 8 weeks and tick boxes to notify Nielsen when and which radio stations they listen to. This method is extremely inconvenient and outdated and I hope they look into better methods for this approach.

 

 Radio stations also conduct focus groups, online surveys, telephone surveys, hire auditoriums etc to make sure that they are doing a satisfactory job at keeping the listeners to that station loyal. There are 8 rolling surveys that occur in Melbourne each year. The diary system is mainly quantitative research with some qualitative research and also helps advertisers make their decisions about which radio station they should choose to promote their product depending on the quantitative figures and because of this “commercial radio stations do not drive the way they follow”. Simon explained further that they try and give the listeners what they want eg. some songs wouldn’t work here as they are too American, music director needs to cater for Australian listeners.