Research into the radio station Heart

1. S
Heart FM Research
Ellie Barter and Nathan Pugsley

2. History
S Heart began broadcasting on September 6 1994 with an original format of soft adult contemporary music such as
Lionel Richie and Tina Turner however this was modified in 1996 with a more neutral hot AC playlist.
S Heart FM was the UK’s third Independent regional radio station after Century Radio and Jazz FM north west and
began test transmissions in London in 1995.
S Gcap media sold Century radio in the east midlands so it became the third station of the heart network in 2005.
S GCap media was then taken over by global radio in 2008 and it was decided that the one network would be
dissolved and one station, Power FM, would become part of the galaxy network (BRMB, Beacon, Mercia FM and
Wyvern FM) to form a west midlands regional network. Heart east midlands was sold to Orion media for similar
reasons.
S June/September 2010. Global merged most of the 33 heart stations to create a smaller network of 18 local and
regional stations.
S In January 2011, Orion media renamed and relaunched heart east midlands as gem 106, which ended a franchise
agreement with global radio.
S February 2014, global announced it would rebrand all real radio stations as heart.

3. Commercial or PBS
S Heart is a commercial radio station, this would be better for our
documentary as we intend to broadcast on channel 4 but they
do not have their own radio station. And our target audience is
parents and parents typically listen to heart radio so we could
broadcast to them around 3/4pm as they would be in the car to
pick up their children
S A PBS station like the BBC would not be a good choice for our
radio advert because we are not broadcasting our documentary
on the BBC TV channels so our advert would appear odd
amongst the rest of their adverts.

4. Target Audience
S Heart’s target audience is aged between 25 and 44 and
enjoy social activities like shopping and spending time
with friends. They are husbands, wives, parents and
professionals, however they would mostly be women.
S This is similar to our target audience which is parents of
teenagers so that they can be informed of the importance
of sport and mothers tend to worry more than fathers so
they would be more inclined to watch.

5. What programs would appeal
to your audience?
S Emma Bunton’s show starts at 4 on a saturday and the audience would be in
the car at that time so they would be listening to her. And they would most
likely like her anyway as she has been in the spice girls and the limelight for
a long time and she has not got a bad name for herself in the press before.
S Jenni Falconer’s show as her show is on from 6am to 8am so she would be
listened to while on the way to work.
S Jason King as his show is from 4pm until 7pm so they would most likely be
travelling to pick their children up from school or college or travelling home at
this point so they would be listening to the radio.
S All of these presenters are very chatty and appear friendly so therefore they
would be more likeable so they would be listened to more, also they play the
kind of songs that our target audience would listen to as it is songs from
when they were younger and more mellow modern songs.

6. When will your advert be
scheduled?
S The advert would be scheduled when the primary
audience of parents would be in a car as that’s the most
likely place that they will be listening to the radio. In that
case it would during the school runs, either in the
morning around 8:30 or in the afternoon around 3:00.
Both times would be ideal as it would intrigue interest in
the morning, and then remind them again in the
afternoon. If this was done on the same day the
documentary aired, it would make sure that they don’t
forgot to watch it in the afternoon.

7. Is it linked to your TV channel?
S There is no direct link between the radio station and the
TV channel that is airing the documentary, however
they’re both commercial stations. Unlike with other
stations such as the BBC ones that can directly link
between TV and Radio, commercial ones can’t; at least
not to the same degree. However it does not mean that
they cannot advertise, as that’s what commercial stations
do. Adverts can be played on the radio station and then
can be backed up by announcements on the TV channel.

8. However
S Heart FM does not usually advertise upcoming TV shows
or documentaries, it usually does product placement ads.
So we decided to choose Heart FM to advertise our
documentary as we are trying to break the mould and get
more radio stations like Heart to advertise upcoming TV
shows/documentaries as their audience fits the target
audience of the TV shows/documentaries.