This document provides an overview of the radio industry, including the different types of radio stations and their funding models. It discusses commercial radio stations that are funded through advertising, public service broadcasting stations like the BBC that are funded by television licenses, and non-profit community stations. It also describes some of the major job roles in radio, such as presenters, producers, and sound engineers. Finally, it briefly outlines some of the professional bodies and new technologies that have impacted the radio industry.

1. Understanding RadioAn insight into the Radio Industry

2. Commercial Radio Commercial Radio Stations are stations which are funded by advertising. At regular intervals all throughout the day they come away from music and presenters and run the advertisements which their clients have paid for. Most of the Commercial Stations are owned by the bigger companies such as The Local Radio Company, GMG Radio and Global Radio. Some of the best known Radio Stations in Leeds are Galaxy 105, Radio Aire and Real Radio. Galaxy, a local independent radio station owned by Global is famed for being the ‘Number One for Dance and R&B’. The figures above are taken from the RAJAR website and show the Population, Reach, Reach Percent, Average Hours per Head, Average Hours Per Listener and Total Hours and Listening Share in TSA %.

3. Real Radio, Radio Aire and Galaxy Yorkshire RAJAR Figures shown as Graphs

4. Public Service Broadcasting Radio Stations that are Public Service Broadcasting do not broadcast advertisements and commercials. They are there to provide benefit to the people, as it is the public who fund it by their purchases of television licenses. BBC Radio Stations are most commonly associated with this as the BBC is a Public Broadcaster run by Governors but owned by the people of Britain All Public Service Stations are for ‘the good of the public’ and so broadcast news coverage and information on all current affairs. The PSB broadcasters are regulated by OFCOM to ensure that the stations are maintaining high quality broadcasts and fulfilling their remit.

5. Non-For-Profit Radio Non-For-Profit Radio Stations are stations that don’t broadcast to make money, they broadcast to keep running. They do not have shareholders and they do not have paid employment and advertising is to pay the cost of broadcasting. One example is PGFM, the in-school radio at Grangefield. Once a year for two weeks they broadcast with a variety of shows to allow students firsthand experience on producing and presenting professional quality broadcasts. In this instance it brings outside members of the community into the studio too. These types of stations are typically school, university, college or community stations. Another local example is Radio Poplar and the new FYDP Radio Station.

6. Job Roles Jobs on a Radio Show vary greatly. In some cases there are many people adopting many different roles, in others, you have to do everything almost single-handedly. This experience is something I had when I took control of the Radio Rascals show on PGFM. I took the role of Presenter, Interviewer, Sound Engineer, Researcher and Script Writer, with help from two other individuals. First, we’d map out a time schedule for the ten, hour-long shows we had to broadcast. From there we would ensure we had guests organized, going out to meet with the schools and work out a date that would fit with their schedules. Once we knew who our guests were, we’d write out a script, and prepare the different segments of our show. When the guest arrived we’d run through with them, make them comfortable before we went live. When we were presenting the live show we then had to manage the sound levels to ensure we were broadcasting at a regular volume and that the everyone was audible

7. Job Roles We acted as our own producers, all taking a role in ensuring that the broadcast was high quality. At a bigger station like Galaxy, it is more likely that these roles would be taken up by different employees. Also, a lot of the jobs we had, such as recording and producing our own jingle, would be taken by an editor. The legwork of organizing guests would fall to a studio assistant, and the producer would most likely not be taking an active role in the presenting of the show. In fact, one pioneer of making an entire radio team into presenters was Chris Moyles who is well known for having all of his team talking as part of the dynamic of his show.

8. Professional BodiesNAB: The National Association of Broadcasters, or NAB, are the trade association that represents the best interests of Free, ‘Over-The-Air’ ‘Full Power Station’ Radio Stations. They currently represent roughly around 8,300 of the USA’s Radio and Television Stations. CMA: The Community Media Association is the body which promotes ‘Non-For-Profit’ Radio Stations. It supports the smaller community stations and one of its aims is to help them establish and develop themselves. OFCOM: One of the biggest media regulators is OFCOM. It is in charge of licensing, creating codes and regulations and resolving the complaints about broadcasts. ASA: The Advertising Standards Authority are the UK regulator of advertising in many forms. They create the codes of advertising to ensure that advertisements don’t cause any offense, and that they are honest.

9. Professional BodiesPRS: The Performing Rights Society is the professional body that represents the rights of the performers of music. They make sure that the artists get the royalties when, for example, their music is used in an advertisement. They work for the writers, the composers and the performers. MCPS: The Mechanical Copyright Protection Society are a subdivision of PRS. They license the reproduction rights in music.

10. New Technologies Advances in technology have allowed radio stations to look into new ways of broadcasting. Podcasts are one very modern very popular way of broadcasting. They are downloadable and iPod/mp3 player compatible. This allows a listener to have the show at their disposal as and when they want to listen. The BBC have BBC iPlayer, on which you can replay a show on your computer when you want to listen to it. The way media is consumed has changed in a big way, instead of the consumer changing to fit the broadcaster’s schedule, the broadcaster has adapted to fir the consumer’s schedule.

11. Radio Industry Sectors

12. Employment in the Radio Sector The BBC and PSB-funded local stations employ somewhere around eleven thousand people, which makes them the biggest employers in the radio industry. The Commercial Radio Sector employs a smaller amount, somewhere just around ten thousand individuals. The third and final sector is the community and voluntary radio which employs only around 2,000 people. This is represented on the graph on the previous slide. Radio Stations have varying numbers of employees, these aren’t distributed evenly between the stations in each sector. A station like BBC Radio One would employ hundreds of people, whereas local radio station Radio Poplar would probably only be employing around ten.