Tilda Swinton &

1. Understanding Radio
Ben Walker

2. Commercial Radio
Commercial radio generally speaking is mainly
broadcasted by regional based stations, commercial radio
is a business like any other, but in radio. Commercial radio
stations are usually in the radio business for the money,
and they gain money by hiring quality presenters, quality
writers, quality producers and others to create quality
shows, sadly these shows are often just a side product of
a money making scheme. They then rake in the money
from the advertising slots sold off to the highest bidder.
News segments in the commercial radio industry are often
just re-organised stories published by Sky News.

3. Commercial Radio In Yorkshire
Capital, Real Radio and Radio Aire are the most common of the commercial radio
stations.
Capital (formally known as Galaxy) is a commercial broadcaster that provides pop
music to the masses of South and West Yorkshire. Capital is owned by Global Radio
a radio conglomerate who also run the Heart and Gold radio stations. Capital receives
1,080,000 listeners on average each day throughout Yorkshire.
Real Radio is another commercial broadcaster located in Leeds, the difference
between Real and the likes of Capital is the older target audience. Real Radio is
owned by the Guardian Media Group, who believe it or not also run the Guardian
newspaper and the likes of the Auto Trader magazine. Real Radio receive a lesser
amount of 368,000 listeners everyday.
Radio Aire is another commercial broadcaster based in the center of Leeds, it is
owned by Bauer Radio who own and run various stations much like Radio Aire
throughout England. Also run from the same site is Aire’s sister AM station Magic 828
who target the older side of the market leaving the younger audience for Radio Aire.
Radio Aire receives 145,000 listeners on average each day.

4. Public Service Broadcasts
Public Service Broadcasts in the UK consist of The BBC only. Their remit is to educate, inform and
entertain each of their audiences. The BBC have a multitude of Radio stations appealing to as
many target audiences as realistically possible.
BBC Radio One is the BBC station that appeals to younger audiences of about 15-30 years, and
the main style of presentation is informal yet professional. The shows during the day consist of
most just chart music but on an evening on shows like Daniel P. Carter’s Rock Show and Skream
and Benga’s show, the genres show cased become a little bit more underground compared to the
breakfast show and drive time etc. Some of the most notable presenters include Chris Moyles,
Fearne Cotton and Scott Mills who host various shows throughout the radio one day. Radio One is
very much a station for personality lead shows which make Chris Moyles and co perfectly fitting.
On average BBC Radio One receive 11,665,000 listeners throughout the day.
BBC Radio Two is the Flagship of the BBC stations with audience figure of around 14,267,000
daily. Radio Two much like Magic to Radio Aire is targeted at the older end of the market of around
35+. Radio Two is the most popular radios station in the UK and Chris Evan’s Breakfast show is at
the peak of it. Other notable presenters include Steve Wright who hosts the drive time show. Radio
Two offers various styles of show including news and current affairs during popular shows and with
documentaries and comedy shows in the evenings. Much like The BBC’s Radio One, Radio Two is
very much a personality lead station also as any Chris Evan’s fan would tell you.

5. Public Service Broadcasts
BBC Radio Three is where the stations begin to fork in the road in terms of listening figures. This
because BBC Radio Three is a dedicated station for classical, jazz and world music, very much the
public service rival to Classical FM with its average of 2,097,000 listeners per day. Some notable
presenters include Sara Mohr-Pietsch who presents the breakfast show and Penny Gore who is in
charge of the drive time slot.
BBC Radio Four is a speech based radio station offering radio dramas, speech packages and
documentaries aimed at a higher class of audience. Kirsty Young is a notable presenter for BBC
Radio Four she hosts a show titled Desert Island Discs which is an interview based show where a
chosen celebrity chooses various pieces of music to sum up various parts of their life and
discusses why these songs are important to them. BBC Radio Four has an average listener count
of 10,834,000 per day.
BBC Radio Four Extra (Formerly BBC Radio Seven) is very similar to Radio Four in the mixed
speech service that it offers, with the main difference being that such speech services have
younger audiences showing the varied genres of speech based segments which Radio Seven
offers. This is clearly why they have merged it with the Radio Four title.
BBC Radio Five Live is also a very speech based BBC radio station, but for the soul purpose of
sport coverage. Radio Five Live therefore has the target audience of sport fans and achieves it’s
highest figures during the football matches on a Saturday afternoon. Analysis shows where they
spend particularly long amounts of time talking about the same 5 minutes of a game extend on into
the evening for the more involved sports fans.

6. New Technologies
In the past the biggest market in the radio industry is the car driver,
the folk who listen to the breakfast on the way to work and coming
home later on at drive time but as time moves on so does
technology and now more newer methods of listening to radio are
apparent. To begin a vast amount of the digital television systems
out currently provide a radio service also, at least for most of The BBC
stations and digital only station such as Kerrang Radio and NME.
Above that the internet is taking a huge share of radio listeners as
people listen to their favourite stations whilst finishing their
dissertations or the last report for their boss, the internet also offers
something that was never really before possible, the chance for
anyone to broadcast and anyone to listen meaning that every
internet radio station in an international one, not to mention with the
added features of Iplayer you can now listen back to the show that
was on in the car in order to figure out what that particular song was
or to listen again to a particular news story.

7. Non-For-Profit Radio
Non-For-Profit radio is as it say on the tin. A Non-For-
Profit radio station is a station that runs without an aim to
profit from the station in monetary terms, instead they run
to provide a service for a community or for a school or
similar. One example of a Non-For-Profit station is PGFM
station based at Pudsey Grangefield School which gives
interested students the opportunity to learn how a radio
studio works and eventually present and run a show of
their own on the 2 week annual period that the station
goes on air. Other examples of Non-For-Profit radio
include hospital radio stations at various hospitals
throughout the UK, they often take on volunteers and
provide entertainment for the patients.

8. Professional Bodies
NAB (The National Association of Broadcasters) – The NAB
are responsible for pointing out key issues facing UK radio
stations such as consumer advertising and limiting content
regulations. They also provide professional development
opportunities for local radio stations, as well as cost-saving
initiatives.
CRCA (Commercial Radio Companies Association) – The
CRCA are an organisation that represent commercial radio
companies to the government and companies like Ofcom in a
way similar to how lawyers represent their clients. They also
have joint ownership of RAJAR with the BBC.
CMA (Community Media Association) – They are very much
the same as the CRCA, only having no ownership shares in
RAJAR and representing non-for-profit radio instead of
commercial radio.

9. Professional Bodies
Ofcom – Ofcom are in charge of regulating what is
broadcast through all varieties of media ensuring
everything is applying to their codes of co-operation.
ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) – to the
advertising CAP Codes taking whatever actions they
see deserving, more often than not the banning of
such breaching advertisements.
PRS (Performing Rights Society Alliance) – They
ensure that all who are due compensation for use of
music on radio or television broadcasts are paid.

10. Employment in the Radio
Organisation
Industry % of all employment in
Number Employed
the radio industry
BBC 10,800 48
Commercial Radio 9,600 43
Community & Voluntary 2,000 9
Radio
TOTAL 22,400 100
• In the radio industry, there are around 6320 employed in the broadcasting section,
around 2320 on the production side and around 4910 in journalism. To work freelance
simply means to work on any aspect in radio, around 25% of workers in the radio
industry work freelance meaning they can float between companies, this is usually
better for them in terms of money.
• Geographically, the main place for work in the radio industry is London, with 39% or
radio jobs based here, 58% of which are involvement with BBC radio stations, this is
because London holds the BBC Headquarters despite that a lot of the production and
technical side are now done in Media City UK, Salford. Northern England on the other
hand has the most jobs in commercial radio.
• Statistics show that it is not essential to have a degree in Media Studies to gain a job
in the radio industry as only 69% of radio industry employees have such
qualifications. This proves that work experience is very useful in the creative
industries.