Research

A really important part of this project before I do anything else will be to complete research into my target audience for my radio show podcast. I want to know exactly who I am targeting so I can create a radio show podcast that will entertain and inform this specific group of people. I have a rough idea for a target audience which is teenagers and young adults as I fall in this age group so have some good knowledge about the likes of this age group.

Target audience:

I found out that Radio 1 has a target audience of people under the age of 29 (William, 2014), as this is the sort of target audience I am going for (as it includes teens and young adults) I am going to carry out research into why people in this age group like the show and what makes them want to listen to it. I am also going to use Radio 1 audience research to help develop my target audience, as I want my radio show podcast to be similar to their format.

I have decided to have a target audience in the 15-29 age group as this age group has a high reach among Radio 1 listeners (40% of this age group listens each week) (BBC, 2015).

In terms of gender the audience profile of Radio 1 listeners is slightly more female than male, while 58% of the audience is ABC1 (vs. the population average of 55%) and 90% of the audience is white (BBC, 2015). From this research I have realised that it's important that my target audience is both male and female, as being gender-inclusive is something that the 21st century lacks e.g the rise of news events like the gender pay gap. I will ensure that I do this by talking about and playing music that appeals to both genders through extensive research.

As I have found out, the majority of the Radio 1 audience is in the ABC1 social grade. This means that the average listener is from one of the three higher social economic groups, which consist of people who are more educated and better-paid jobs than those in other groups. My target audience is going to be from the ABC1 social grade as I am going to have a current affairs/topical debate and people in this social grade have a good level of education so therefore will fully appreciate and understand the complexities of my debate.

A big problem that I have identified with the Radio 1 demographics is that 90% of the listenership is white. It's fair to say that there is a problem in modern-day society with ethnic diversity and representation in media-based products like TV and radio - this is clearly represented in this report I discovered which was carried out by Ofcom (Ofcom, 2015). I am therefore going to try and appeal to people from different ethnic backgrounds as well as white people, to make my show more diverse. I plan to do this by playing music from artists from different ethnic backgrounds such as Jorja Smith who is black and explaining their importance to the music industry.

One of my main aims for my radio show podcast is that I want it to be informative to the audience. In fact only a third (35%) of people surveyed thought BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 informs and educates the public (William, 2014). This is an area I am going to address by making the topical debate part of my show where I ask the question "Is TV dead?".

Popular music among my target audience 

As my radio show has a target audience of 15 to 29 year olds I need to carry out research into popular music amongst this age group. I also need to ensure that I find some music to play on my radio show podcast that has been created by somebody from an ethnically diverse background - as I want my show to appeal to people from different ethnic backgrounds, something that I found out that Radio 1 fails to do well.

I found an article online where teenagers recommend music to listen to and a girl named Tilly aged 19 (she is in my target audience age group of 15 to 29 year olds) recommended that you should listen to "Let me down" by Jorja Smith featuring Stormzy (Ljaduola, 2018). She said: "To merge her sound with Stormzy’s was basically pure genius and creates a different vibe to her music but still retains her originality." Another reason why I think this would be a very suitable song to include in my radio show podcast is that I got this research from the website Noisey which is a website dedicated to finding and pinpointing the best and most exciting music for young people. Furthermore, the average age of the readers of this website are 18 to 34, very similar to my target audience of 15 to 29 year olds. Another reason why this song would be very suitable for my radio show is that I have found out from research that her father is from Jamaica and therefore Jorja comes from a very ethnically diverse background - one of my aims was that I wanted to appeal to people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds as from research i found out Radio 1 lacked this. I will ensure that I talk about how her ethnically diverse background has influenced her music - something that's really important to her.  I interviewed my sister who is 21 and 4 of her friends all aged between 19 and 23 (so in the 15 to 29 target audience I am going for) to list their favourite artists and in fact 3 out of 4 of them listed Stormzy who is featured on this track so this confirmed to me that this would be a great song to play on my radio show.

I also censored this song as I want it to be able to be listened by everybody in my target audience (15 to 29) - and as some of my target audience are under the age of 18 I don't want to expose them to explicit words.

I know needed to find another song to play on radio show podcast. From research I found that pop music was a very popular genre of music amongst teenagers. In fact, in a survey conducted in the United States 52% of 16 to 19 year olds stated that pop music was their favourite music genre (Statista, 2018). From this I realised I should check the official charts in the UK to see popular music that is currently trending. One song that I came across was a song called: "I'm so tired" by Lauv and Troye Sivan. When I checked on the 12th April it was currently at number 12 in the charts so  it clearly was very popular song in the UK. I really liked this song and the great thing was that not was it only pop music but it also had a R&B feel to it (in fact in the survey I found 23% of 16 to 19 year olds rated R&B as their favourite music genre so it clear it was also quite popular) which meant that it should appeal to a wide variety of people in my target audience.

Finally, I needed one more song for my radio show podcast. I took another look at the UK top charts and decided to pick the song that was at number 1 to feature in my radio show podcast. When I checked (on the 12th April 2019) the song: Someone you loved by Lewis Capaldi was at number one. In fact this is one of my favourite songs, and I believe its really important that I love the music and immerse myself in it, so I can share this passion on the show. From the survey I found earlier from Statista, one of the findings was that 21% of 20 to 24 year olds rated the singer/songwriter style of music as their favourite and this is exactly the style of music this song is, so it should therefore be quite popular with my target audience. 

One of the main reasons why I want my radio show to be a podcast is because then it will be available to people online - as my target audience is 15 to 29 the internet will plays a big part in their lives and therefore the internet is a great platform for my target audience to access my radio show podcast. In fact virtually all adults aged 16 to 34 year old were recent internet users (99%) compared to 41% of adults aged 75 years and over (Office for National Statistics, 2017). Furthermore as I have found out traditional broadcasting on Radio (such as frequencies like FM and AM) is in decline, for example, "Radio 1's audience fell by 3.2% in the last three months of 2016 compared with the previous quarter, while Radio 1Xtra fell 11.4% over the same period. Capital saw its listener ship drop by 3.1%, while the Kiss network saw its share fall by 3.5%."  (BBC News, 2017)

Radio and podcast code and conventions and popular radio/podcast shows

Now that I know what I want to achieve and my target audience, its important that I learn the common elements that make up popular radio shows and podcasts within my target age range (15-29).

I looked on YouTube for videos explaining some of the common codes and conventions in Radio and came across a video (Nathans codes and conventions of radio video, 2015) which explained the different elements that make up radio shows. This really informed me on some really important aspects of radio shows such as music beds, radio jingles and idents and pre-recorded interviews. A really important aspect of radio that I learnt was the importance of the use of radio jingles, as these identifies the station and the presenter - I am definitely going to ensure that I make one of these. I found out from research that logic pro x was a really good piece of software to make these radio jingles, and my college had this software installed on some of their Mac's so I knew I had access to it.

Here are some of the important Codes and conventions of radio/podcast shows that I have learnt about and want to incorporate into my show:

• Jingle: The jingle is a mix of sound effects, music and vocals. The jingle identifies the radio station and the current presenter.
• Sound bed: The sound bed is the quiet music in the background while the presenter talks or the news is being read and can set the mood and tone of the radio show/podcast.
• Ident: the ident is a short clip of music, sound effects and vocals to tell you the radio stations name and gives the radio station an identity.
• Interviews: Speaking to another person and asking questions, opinions to gain information or discus their views on a particular topic.

I now need to decide how long I want my radio show podcast to be. From research I discovered the average length of a podcast lasts about 30 minutes, however listeners on average listen to 22 minutes of a podcast (Dougherty, 2017). In fact I found a Radio 1 Podcast (BBC Radio 1, 2019) (which has a similar target audience to me) and their podcast lasted 19 minutes. From this is I realised that I am going to ensure my podcast is around 19 to 22 minutes long. 

From research I found two examples of radio jingles and idents that I am going to use for inspiration. I found a Capital FM jingle (radiojingles, 2019) and a Radio 1 Jingle (PURE JINGLES, 2019).

From listening to these jingles and idents I have come up with a script as to what mine will sound like: "Keeping you up to date with the trending topics and playing you the latest music. You are listening to Station X". - (I explained how I came up with this name further down in the blog). I really rated the Capital FM jingle as I particularly liked the part of the jingle where the audio went tinny - it almost sounded like the sound was coming through a telephone - which made the jingle stand out and therefore help the station identity stand out. I am definitely  going to try and add this effect to the radio jingle I create.

I started to listen and analyse Capital FM which has a very similar target audience to me (15-34). One thing that I noticed was that the breakfast show I listened to that is hosted by Roman Kemp is that he is is very upbeat, natural, and enthusiastic along with the other co-presenters. Furthermore there is music in the background when he is speaking - which I found out from research was called a music bed. When I pitched my project proposal, I asked for feedback from the audience on what they thought was important in a good radio/podcast presenter and something that really stood out to me that was said was that, its important to knot to be to 'in your face' and loud as this is annoying on a radio podcast show but instead chilled and enthusiastic. I think the music bed is really effective as it keeps the show upbeat flowing to prevent the listeners becoming bored. In fact I discussed this with my sister (who is 21 and is a Capital FM listener) and she said it definitely keeps you engaged with the show. I also discovered, just like with Radio 1 there were plenty of interviews as well, as well as phone ins.

Here is a video (Capital FM, 2019) of part of the breakfast show with Roman Kemp interviewing singer Lewis Capaldi Another thing that I noticed, was that this interview was quite laid back, which makes it quite enjoyable to listen to - when analysing this I worked out that one of the ways this is done is by chilled out body language to make the interviewee feel relaxed, something which I am going to ensure I do.

I also looked into and analysed a popular podcast among my target audience. The podcast was called: "All songs considered" which is a podcast show by NPR. The reason why I picked this podcast to listen to is because it was featured in an article by Teen Vogue (Nast, 2019) , and of course teenagers make up a large part of my 15 to 29 target audience Just like I plan my radio show podcast to include the show's hosts (Bob Boilen and a cast of NPR Music staffers) play a mix of songs along with commentary about their picks.

Here is the podcast that I listened to and analysed: "All songs considered - New Music Friday: Our Top 6 Albums Out May 17 by Robin Hilton" (NPR, 2019)



One of the things that I noticed is that when the presenters talked about the different music they were playing, they would talk in detail about the other artists they have worked with. They would also talk about what influenced and inspired the artists to create the music they did, such as how the rapper Duckworth (Kendrick Lamar) grew up in a very religious household in the late 80's which influenced his music along with and his love for West Coast Hip Hop. I found this insight into the different artists life really interesting and I wanted to incorporate this element into my radio show podcast. As I needed to ensure that this would be popular with my target audience I asked people in my target age group (15 to 29) to rate out of 1 to 5 how important getting an insight into the artists lifes was. Out of the 8 people that I asked (ages which ranged from 16 to 28 - so people in my target age group) 6 out of 8 of these people rated it as 4 (so therefore important). 1 person rated it as 2 and the other person rated it as 5. From my primary research it was clear that people found finding out about the artists lives that they were listening to, important on a radio show so therefore I was going to implement this in my radio show podcast. I am going to do this by doing a bit of research into the different artists that I am going to play on my radio show, such as how Jorja Smith's father was born in a neo-soul group in Jamaica and how this influenced her music. I have mentioned earlier on in the blog about why I am going to talk about Jorja Smith's ethnically diverse background so I can appeal to more of a ethnically diverse audience something which I found out that Radio 1 lacks.

Topical debate/ current affairs research

As I have previously mentioned, I want one on of the parts of my podcast radio show to be a topical debate/current affairs part where I talk about trending topics. I have chosen to have a topical debate/current affairs segment on the topic of: 'Is TV Dead?'. One of the main reasons why I want to have this segment to my show is because like I have previously stated only a third (35%) of people surveyed thought think BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 informs and educates the public (William, 2014), and I want to make sure I achieve one of my mains of informing my listeners. Also this topic should really grip my target audience of 15 to 29 as many people in this age group will be able to relate to using services like Netflix and Amazon to stream video content, and therefore watching less and less television. I need to ensure that I carry out plenty of research so that I can discuss and debate this with my father (who works in audience research at the BBC) for my radio show podcast.

Here I found a graph from a report showing the average minutes of TV watched over a 7 day period according to the different age groups (BBC Worldwide, 2018). As you can see since 2012 the amount of TV watched by 16-24's (a large part of my target audience) has decreased a large amount, for example in 2012 16-24's watched on average just above 150 minutes of TV a week compared to in 2017 when on average they only watched around 100 minutes a week. This decrease of over 50 minutes, is quite significant and from looking at the trend on the graph it looks like it will continue to decrease, especially as streaming services like Netflix and Amazon prime video continue to gain in popularity. I will defiantly ensure that I discuss this with my father on my show, as I'm sure the listeners will be very interested to hear this.

Here I found another graph which shows the number of households that have subscribed to VOD (video on demand) services (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board, 2019). As you can see from the graph every single VOD service has increased in subscriptions in households from 2014.  For example the number of households that subscribed to Netflix in the first quarter of 2014 was 2.79 millions whereas in the fourth quarter of 2018 that increased to 10.31 million households - that is an increase of 7.52 million households! This is another statistic that I am going to present to my father when he comes and talks with my on my radio show podcast - and I will ensure that I ask him what effect this is having on TV viewing figures. Another statistic that I picked from the graph was in the first quarter of 2014, 3.83 million households had subscribed to a VOD service, whereas in the fourth quarter of 2018, 12.3 million households were subscribed to at least one VOD service - that's an increase of 8.47 million!

Another very interesting statistic that I found was that Canadian cable providers have lost over 10,000 subscribes in the 2nd quarter of 2013 making for three straight quarters of losses (satellite has recorded losses for five straight quarters). "It's a historical first. Growth for cable has been negative for seven straight quarters, while that for IPTV (Internet protocol TV) has been positive for nine consecutive quarters, also according to IHS" (Samson, 2013). This is clearly showing that traditional cable TV viewing is declining and the use of internet to stream content is gaining in popularity. It is important to note however that the decline in subscribers to cable TV in the 2nd quarter of 2013 maybe due to factors such as weather (for example if the weather is warmer, less people watch TV and spend more time outside) so this must be taken into consideration.

From this research I have come up with questions that I am going to want to debate and question my father - who I am going to have on the show to discus 'Is TV dead?' I have used a variety of different question types for my interview with my father to get a wide range of information out of him - this is something that I learnt how to do from the documentary project. I have incorporated my research and turned it into these questions

• First of all could you please tell the me and listeners exactly what you do at the BBC?
• According to statistics released by BBC worldwide the amount of time that 16 to 24 year olds are watching TV has decreased in 2012 16-24's watched on average just above 150 minutes of TV a week compared to in 2017 when on average they only watched around 100 minutes a week. The amount of time that 16-24's are watching TV is decreasing year by year, and from the graph it looks like it will continue to decrease. Surely this shows to you that TV has had its time and is now dying out especially among the youth?
• Looking at another graph that has been created by BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) the amount of households that had a subscription VOD service in the first quarter of 2014 was 3.83 million households whereas in the fourth quarter of 2018, 12.3 million households were subscribed to at least one VOD service - that's an increase of 8.47 million! Surely with subscription VOD services like Netflix gaining huge popularity in the UK and in fact around the world, this is showing that people are getting fed up with traditional TV viewing further reinforcing that TV is dying?
• Now David, as you work in audience research what sort of impact are these subscription based VOD services like Amazon and Netflix having on TV viewing figures?
• In fact traditional TV viewing bot only looks like its in big trouble in the UK but also abroad as well. For example Canadian cable providers have lost over 10,000 subscribes in the 2nd quarter of 2013 making for three straight quarters of losses, which as been described as a "historical first" by the IHS. Doesn't this just show that this is a global problem for TV.

Creating a plan:

Its important that I create a clear plan for my podcast radio show, so I know exactly how it will be structured and what I need to say. The reason why I am only going to create a plan instead of a script is that because, I want my radio show podcast to sound natural like the Radio 1 and Capital FM shows that I've heard sound like, and I don't want to sound very scripted and the show to feel rigid. One of the main advantages I have, is that as many radio shows are broadcast life, if you forgot to do something or make a big mistake its noticeable to the listeners and could potentially ruin the show however, mine is going to be a pre-recorded show so I will have the ability to edit parts out that go wrong. As i want my radio show podcast to be between 19 to 22 minutes long I have put some timing into my plan, so that I can try to stick to the 19 to 22 minute duration I'm going for.

From my previous experience I have a good idea of the equipment that I need in order to make my radio drama broadcast. I learnt how to use the Zoom H4n recorder in the previous radio drama broadcast project, and also the Rode NT1-A condenser microphone. Some of the key things I learnt from the previous radio drama broadcast project, was to ensure that you use a pop filter on the microphone to avoid popping from plosive sounds. I also learn that you need to select channel 2 on the Zoom H4n microphone when connecting the condenser microphone via the XLR cable to the Zoom.  From my previous experience I have compiled an equipment list that I need for my project:

• Rode NT1-A Condenser Microphone
• Pop shield
• Zoom H4n recorder
• Microphone Isolation Shield
• Computer/laptop for example an Apple Mac
• Software: Adobe audition, Logic Pro X (for making the radio jingles and idents) and Audacity

Coming up with a name:

Intellectual property research


Another important aspect of my research into my radio show podcast is intellectual property. As I am using copyrighted content such as the music that is in my radio show podcast (which is someone elses intellectual property, it's important for me to look into the legality of this, and also further my knowledge in this area as this may  really help me further down the line if I get a career in this area of the media industry and also make me more employable.

As this copyrighted music is being used for educational purposes, there are exceptions that can be made, as this is not for commercial purposes and I am therefore not making money from this production.

According to the gov.uk website "performing, playing or showing copyright works in a school, university or other educational establishment for educational purposes" is an exception that allows "copyright works to be used for educational purposes." Furthermore "recording a TV programme or radio broadcast for non-commercial educational purposes in an educational establishment, provided there is no licensing scheme in place" is also an exception that allows 'copyright works to be used for educational purposes.'  (GOV.UK, 2019) As my radio show podcast falls within these exceptions I can therefore use the copyrighted works such as songs in my radio show podcast legally without having to purchase any licenses.

I found out that if I was creating this radio show podcast for commercial use and using intellectual property such as music I would have to pay for and obtain a license from PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited). Obtaining this license ensures that the owner of the intellectual property gets revenue from their content that has been used for commercial purposes. (Ppluk.com, 2019)


Podcast Distribution

I also decided to create a SoundCloud account to publish my radio podcast show on as after all podcasts are listened to and downloaded on the internet. The reason why I chose to publish it on Souncloud is that it gives you the option to download content, so people can listen to my podcast on the go on their phones. In fact I asked Also there is a SoundCloud app available on Apple App Store and the android store so you can listen to my podcast on the app - as my target age group is 15 to 29 this should be very popular with them.  Here is my SoundCloud page.

Ensuring that my listeners can listen to the radio show podcast on their phones and download it, is really important to me as smartphones are driving podcast usage. As you can see from the graph below their has been a 157% increase since 2014 in users listening or downloading a podcast on their smartphones (Winn, 2019).

Now that I had created my radio show podcast, I now was going to play back segments of it to my target audience to gather their feedback. Feedback from my target audience is really important in this project as I want to get an understanding of whether my radio show podcast is appealing to my target audience.


 I created a survey which included questions about whether I achieved some of my main aims of my  radio show podcast such whether it was entertaining and informative.

Here are the following responses that I got from my radio show podcast. I asked them questions and then noted down their responses in word documents.

Here I interviewed Justin my lecturer who is 28 so in the upper end of the (15 to 29 age group) I asked him to respond to the questions in the survey and recorded his voice:

I definitely learnt a lot from listening to him - here were some of the key thing I picked up:

• The high hat part of the sound bed was a bit distracting and pierced through my voice at points but overall he liked that the soundbed gave the show an upbeat tempo which meant he didn't get listening fatigue. He said it gave the show some momentum.
• He wouldn't listen to this podcast for the music as he was less interested in the choice of songs and didn't know the artists that I was referring to (he said he didn't listen to the genres of music that I played) but he would listen to it for the interview/debate part of the show. He found this part of the radio show really interesting and informative and thought I was very well researched and conducted the interview very well. He did go onto say however that at times during the interview/debate part of the show I did stumble over my words and implied that my personality wasn't quite as passionate as the opening of the show. Also he did notice that the sound quality changed during the interview/debate part of the show compared to the rest of it.
• He thought the radio jingles sounded professional and followed the conventions of radio jingles - such as the modulation of the sounds.
• He thought my personality was passionate and upbeat especially in the introduction part of the radio show, and when I'm giving background information about the artists. He really liked the commentary that I gave about the song choices.
• Overall he found it entertaining and interesting - in particular the discussion/debate part and thought it was a well put together piece.

I have managed to gain some focused feedback from people in my target audience which has been really useful because it has confirmed to me that I have appealed to a wide range of people in my target audience and also achieved my aims to some extent. I also learnt that there were parts of my radio show podcast that some people in my target audience didn't like so much, such as some people loosing interest in the discussion part of the show and how the music didn't appeal to everyone. Overall from my feedback I think I have done a good job of appealing to my target audience however I know what parts of the show to adapt to make it even more appealing.

Three out of the 4 people that I surveyed who were aged: 17, 19 and 20 - all liked the variety of music and the different artists that I played. However my lecturer who is 28, wasn't really into the choice of songs and artists - it wasn't his sort of genre of music.  This has informed me that people in the lower end of my 15-29 target audience are enjoying the music more than people in the upper end of the age group. That being said as I have only surveyed one person in the upper age group (as I struggled to find people like this) - this means I haven't got a wide range of data so therefore its not entirely reliable as there many be many 28 year olds that do like the music that I have featured. If i was to make this show again or something similar I would ensure that I researched favourite genres of music in the upper end of the 15-29 age group as I feel I focuses to much on the younger ages in the group.

In terms of appealing to people from ethnically diverse backgrounds - from the one person that I gathered feedback in my focus group that was from an ethnically diverse background - I learnt that he found it entertaining, and like the fact that I talked about artists such as Jorja Smith and how her ethnically diverse background such as her fathers Caribbean roots influenced her music. Again to get more reliable data in future I will interview more people.

Overall from the feedback that I got about the interview/discussion part of the show it was a mixed bag. Justin (my lecturer) who is 28 really found it really interesting. However people in the lower end of the age group the feedback was more mixed. One female in the group thought that the discussion part of the show went on a bit too long and so they began to loose interest. Another female thought that there were too many statistics, which they found a bit confusing. I have now learnt that if I was to do this again that I should interview my target audience before I record this part of the show and ask them questions such as: how long do you want the discussion to be, and do you find statistics engaging and informative in interviews? This would hopefully ensure that my discussion/debate part of my show would appeal to everybody in my target audience.

Overall everybody in my target audience thought that the radio show podcast was entertaining - so this was an aim that I wanted my show to achieve and indeed I managed to do this.

Creating a website for the podcast

As my show is a podcast its important that I have a good online presence, so along with SoundCloud account that I have already created, I am also going to create a website to accompany my podcast. This will mean listeners of my podcast will have somewhere to go, to find out more about the radio podcast station. I am also going to create a fictitious merchandise shop page on the website, as if this station ever went commercial in the future it would need revenue to pay for music licensing from PPL.

I created the website using WIX. The great thing about WIX is that when you create a website using this site builder it optimises it for mobile phones, so people using mobile phones can have a smooth trouble-free experience when they are using it - as I have previously stated smartphones are very important in driving podcast growth.

You can find my website here: Station X website