Commercial radio stations are privately owned and generate funds primarily through advertisements. Capital FM is the most popular commercial radio station in Britain. Public service radio, like the BBC, is funded by a television license fee and does not run advertisements. The BBC employs around 11,000 people and operates numerous national and local radio stations. Not-for-profit community radio stations operate on very small local levels and obtain funding from various sources like donations, but cannot earn more than £15,000 from advertisements. They are often based out of hospitals, schools, and local businesses.

1. Unit 9:
Understanding the
radio industry
By Kieran Jackson

2. Commercial radio
• Commercial radio is the broadcasting of radio programmes,
radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as
opposed to state sponsorship. Commercial radio basically sells
advertisements that its main way of getting funds. As a
listener you will understand it’s a commercial radio stations
because it will go to advertisement breaks. This is how they
make profit. This is a contrast with public broadcasting which
receives funding's from the government. Capital FM is the
most popular commercial radio show in Britain, The station
was firstly owned by GCap Media and Chrysalis Radio, but
with the takeovers by Global Radio and then merged to form
the Capital network in 2011. Capital has stations spread all
over the UK, they have up to 7.1 million listeners in just one
week. c

3. Public service radio
• In the United Kingdom, the term "public service broadcasting"
means broadcasting for the public benefit rather than to just based
around commercial funds. the BBC, they broadcast in the UK, which
is funded by a licence fee and does not sell advertisement, is most
notable for being the first public service broadcaster in the UK. The
BBC is the biggest employer for the radio industry employing almost
11,000 people to provide its many national and local stations. These
consist of 11 national UK services also including local stations. The
BBC's Radio Stations. Example of a BBC stations, BBC radio 1, BBC
radio 6 and the BBC Asian Network. A standard TV Licence costs
£145.50 – the equivalent of £12.13 per month or just under 40p per
day. From that £12.13, £2.30 get taken from this amount and given
to the radio industry. This money also gets put towards the internet
and online sources. The radio is a massive sector in the media
industry.

4. Not-for-profit radio:
• Community Radio stations are only very small locations, they are
micro-local stations who offer opportunities for people we are
interested in working in the radio industry. Funding's come from a
lot of different sources, they don’t use any advertising or any our
related sources to make there funding, but some community radio
stations do use some advertisements, £15,000 is the maximum
amount of money they can make when using commercialised
sources and advertisements. Most of these radio stations are based
at hospitals, locations where students are such as colleges and
universities, cafes in the community and in store radios in shops.
Examples of community stations such as, Kane FM, Kane FM serves
young people aged 15-39 focusing on and supporting independent
urban music and showcasing local artists, this is a student radio
show, they have donations for people to give to the radio show.
Radio Fox is the most popular hospital radio show, radio Fox
broadcasts to many hospital locations, their primary aim is to
entertain the patients of the hospitals. Radio fox has many different
fundraising to help with the funding's.