this is my research portfolio for my 13 final major project

1. RESEARCH PORTFOLIO
XTREME

2. Contents Page
NAME IDEAS
RADIO STATION SUMMARIES OF RELEVANT STATIONS
RADIO X
KERRANG!
OTHER STATIONS
SUB BRAND STATIONS
RADIO VS STREAMING
G-SELECTOR AND ZETTA
AUDIENCE
FOCUS GROUP
SURVEY
MARKET RESEARCH CONCLUSION
CLOCK AND SCHEDULING
ADVERTISING
EVALUATION
REFERENCES (NOT COMPLETED)

3. Station Names
At the start of the project I decided I would come up with a name
early, so here are some of the ideas I came up with,
1) The Boulder this name was my first decision because of its
simpleness its a heavy rock which is similar to my brand which is a
heavy rock brand.
2) The Solid Steel this is a revamp of another name for a heavy
metal station which is called liquid metal which i thought was really
catchy but because of the name being based off another station I
thought it would be best if I didn't use it as the station name
3) Heavy this was a simple idea because it is what the title says its
heavy which is good but at the same time doesn't give the listeners
a lot to go on.
4) The Burner was a name I came up with because when people
think of metal they think skulls and fire so I thought of something
that has fire and sounds a bit death like.
5) Radio Xtra I thought this was a good name because my project
is to make a substation to Radio X and if I was to work with the
station, then they would probably want the original brand as a part
of it.
In the end I decided my final name was Xtreme. which I thought
was more of a suitable name.

4. Radio Stations
THIS IS THE SUMMARY OF THE STATIONS
SECTION 1

5. KERRANG!
Kerrang! radio recently went off the air but is still being played
online. Although they were aiming at the same target audience,
they were not actually focusing only on those people and in the
end the music was aimed at too broad of an audience.
RADIO X
Radio X is one of the very few radio stations
which is rock and successful as well as
being part of the biggest UK radio brand
Global. Fortunately I was able to get the full
schedule to review and talk about how I
would change the hour.

6. THE ARROW
The arrow is a rock station setup by Global
which is on DAB and is not viewed as a big
brand.
PLANET ROCK
Planet Rock is a slightly heavy rock station
that is thriving on the radio market and is
one of the biggest stations for rock at the
moment which is owned by Bauer Radio
along side Absolute classic rock radio.

7. Radio X
section 2
ONE OF THE BIGGEST ROCK STATION AT THE MOMENT

8. Radio X
Radio X is one of the 7 main radio stations. 6 if Capital Xtra is
classed as a sub station. Radio X is an indie/rock station aimed at
men aged 30+.
Radio X originated as a pirate radio station under the name XFM
until it won a commercial radio licence. It was then purchased by
Global and subsequently re-branded to Radio X.
At this moment Radio X is on FM in London and Manchester, DAB
across the country and the Global Player app.

10. Radio X Schedule
Links
Songs
Adverts
What am I going to do differently
I was sent 1 hour from Adrian at Global, which has all of the different songs, adverts, sweepers
and links.
From what I can see of the links they are obviously placed with a certain distance between each
other so that the listener gets to hear music as much as possible. They also don't put adverts near
the links because otherwise the listener doesn't hear a song for too long and will change station.
The song placement is very important because the listener wants to hear old and new songs more
than the current and re-current. If current and re-current are over played then they lose the effect
they give to the listener. The new songs also have a certain placement as well as links, seeing as
its easier to get people to enjoy the song when the link hypes it up.
The adverts are not very close to the links so the listener isn't too over whelmed and is able listen
to music without getting bored.
When creating my playlist and clock I'm going to do a slightly different layout because I'm going to
have a different amount of songs seeing as while looking into songs the throwbacks have more of a
appeal. I think that to keep the audiences attention I'm going to do 3 in an hour instead of 1 and I'm
going to have less frequent hot hits seeing as there are not too many new songs that get released
(there is more detail on page 49).

11. KERRANG!
ONCE THE BIGGEST HEAVY METAL STATION
SECTION 3

12. Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a heavy metal radio station which used to be on FM
channels but has now gone digital. In my opinion the station was
not a success becuase looking at the playlist the song choice is
poor. Kerrang! choose songs that have big name artists but the
songs by those artists are not popular.
What I'm going to do differently is to focus on keeping the music I
play popular and keeping my scheduling in a well structured
order.

14. Other Radio
Stations
SECTION 4
THIS INCLUDES ARROW AND PLANET ROCK

15. MUSIC TYPE: CLASSIC ROCK
The Arrow is available on DAB Digital and streamed on
the internet. The station itself is owned by Global, but is not
viewed as one of its main stations and is more of a popular
substation. The station plays lots of music but without too
many interruptions. On DAB you can see the title of each
song as it plays, and the artist or group name too which
means that the listener knows exactly what they are
listening too.

16. Although The Arrow's audience remains small, the station's
listener base has nearly doubled over the past 12 months,
from 86,000 in the third quarter of last year.
However, it has fallen short of breaking through into the top tier of
digital radio stations such as Emap's The Hits and Smash
Hits, with 1.49 million and 1.18 million listeners respectively.
The Arrow's rock rival Planet Rock, which is owned by Bauer
Media, is in third place in the digital-only market with
548,000 listeners, nearly four times its audience.
Chrysalis Radio, the former owner of The Arrow, failed with its
repeated attempts to win an analogue FM licence for the
rock format, despite bidding in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle
and Edinburgh.
The station is available on digital audio broadcast - radio in
London, the West Midlands, the north-west, Yorkshire, the north-
east, central Scotland, south Wales and the West Country. It can
also be heard online and on Sky Digital and Virgin Media.
Listening Figures

17. Planet Rock
MUSIC TYPE: SLIGHTLY HEAVY ROCK
Planet Rock is a radio station in the United Kingdom owned by Bauer Radio. The
station broadcasts classic rock music from the 1960s onwards. It is available
nationally on Sky, Virgin Media, Freesat and Online, and to some locations via DAB.
Planet Rock forms part of Bauer Radio's portfolio of radio brands. Planet Rock was
founded in 1999 as the only classic rock radio station in the UK at that time.
Since 2006 Planet Rock has featured an array of rock star presenters who have
either fronted limited run series or hosted long running weekly or monthly shows.
The station was based first at Swallow's Place in central London before it moved
to the Global building in Leicester Square where it lived until 2008 when
threatened with closure, it was sold to Malcolm Bluemel and it moved once again
to purpose built offices and studios in Marylebone, London
In 2013, Planet Rock was bought by international media company Bauer Media. The
Planet Rock team are now based at Bauer Radio's National HQ at One Golden
Square, London. Planet Rock is one of the closest station at the moment to what I
would like to do with my station.

19. Top Station Metrics
Rock’s resurgence
Music Week has reported on the rock revival at
radio – and it’s not going away. 6 Music is obviously
going gangbusters but rock-oriented commercial
networks also had a good Q1. Even Radio 2 is
launching a rock show.
Global’s Radio X has added 262,000 listeners in a
year – a whopping increase of 19.9%. Planet Rock
was up 3.4% year-on-year to 1.061m, while Kerrang!
posted a 3.7% increase to 617,000. Absolute
increased by 11.4% year-on-year to 2.418m, though
was down 7.3% on the quarter. So it’s a resurgence
that’s still subject to some volatility…
Rock stations score highly in the You Gov metrics for
being dynamic, exciting, unique, evolving and
improving.

20. Sub Brand
Stations
THIS IS FOR THE DIFFERENT SUB STATION'S
SECTION 5

21. BBC Radio 1 xtra
BBC Radio 1Xtra (also known simply as 1Xtra)
is a digital urban contemporary and black music radio station in
the United Kingdom that is owned and operated by the BBC.
BBC Radio 1Xtra's music includes largely British, North
American, Caribbean and African hip hop, grime, bassline, UK
Garage, dubstep, drum and
bass, UK funky, house, dancehall, soca, reggae, gospel
music, bhangra, soul, and R&B.
It is available on digital radio (DAB), digital satellite
television, digital terrestrial television (Freeview), and
the Internet. 1Xtra's typical audience is between 15 and 30
years old. The upper age range is deliberately lower than sister
station Radio 1 which is closer to 35.

22. Capital Xtra
Capital XTRA has a youthful social, vibrant audience
of urban dance music lovers. Capital XTRA’s
listeners pride themselves on being ahead of the
trend and have a huge appetite for music discovery.
It engages with the future of urban dance music so
you get it before anyone else.
Capital XTRA now reaches 1.8 million listeners every
week for a total of 6.2 million hours.
Capital XTRA In The Morning With Jez Welham now
reaches 746,000 listeners every week for a total of
1.3 million hours (+25% YoY).
Source: Q1 2019, all stations and groups results are
reported on their specified reporting period and TSA.

23. Radio VS Streaming
SECTION 6

24. According to the research, 88% of the UK’s 55 million adults
over the age of 15 tune in to the radio each week, clocking
up an average of 20.7 hours a week, just slightly down on
2016, which shows that radio is still a very popular form of
media.

25. Radio Online is a Growing Trend
The time spent listening to AM/FM radio is decreasing as more
listeners tune in to digital radio. DAB is the most common
source of digital radio but on line radio is growing strongly.
The age group that listens most to online radio is 25-44. this
means that not only is radio not dying but my target audience
are the ones keeping it alive.

26. GSelector and Zetta
SECTION 7

27. GSelector
WHAT IS IT? AND WHY AM I USING IT
GSelector is a music scheduling software which was developed by
RCS sound software. the software is capable of running multiple
stations and using inputed results it can determine which song
out of each categories is best suited to each time slot. The
program can then relay the message to the second software
called Zetta for which more information can be found on the slide
30.
The reason I'm going to use GSelector is because unlike a lot of
software it can have variables so that the different categories
can play at specific times.

30. Zetta
WHAT IS IT? AND WHY AM I USING IT
Zetta is a music automation system whichy can be connected up
to studios for pre recorded shows and is used by Global on some
of there stations like Classic FM, Gold and Heart 80s. The reason
I'm going to be using Zetta is because its easy to understand and
it allows me to see the schedule the songs chosen by GSelector
as well as put the audio into both GSelector and Zetta. it also
means that if my station becomes quite popular I'll be able to
swap some of the hours to link shows and have people voice
tracks before the studios are needed by other stations.
I also have a lot of knowledge on the system after working on it
for 2 years with Youths Choice.

33. Audience
SECTION 8

34. Audience Mood Board
A survey-based research study on 414 British undergraduates showed
that those you liked metal music tended to be more open to experiences,
wanted to be unique, and were not in favour of authority.
Most likely music fans to be loyal to their partner
Target Age
Men between the age 16 – 30 and
higher depending on whether
someone wants to listen to heavy
metal after the age of 30
A lot of the heavy metal fans are
quite energetic and that reflects in
the music with songs which are
commonly known as screemos,
which is a term used for songs that
have screeming in the lyrics
Often introverted but at ease
with self
2015 survey said metal fans are
the happiest as adults
There is a sense of community
between the fans
Festivals
Heavy metal fans love going to
rock and metal concert and
one of the biggest festivals for
this is download festival
Appearance
Tend to have longer hair than average
Clothes are quite traditional leather
and denim and trainers
Older fans are likely to have tattoos
Hobbies
A lot of heavy metal fans in there spare
time try to learn instruments the most
common one being guitar, as well as
learning instruments they normally get
together with other heavy metal fans
and create bands
Despite the sometimes aggressive image that rock music and
heavy metal project, researchers found that fans of this style of
music are usually quite gentle. they tend to be creative but are
often introverted

35. Name: Heavy metal fan Age: 16-30
Bio: I'm a young adult who is crazy for heavy metal and wants
to find new music everywhere I go. I'm part of a band called
____ which will blow your mind. My favorite place to go is the
biker pub, metal concerts and festivals.
Favorite bands: Avenged Sevenfold, Slipknot and No Resolve
Hobbies: part of a heavy metal bands
Work: retail/office job
Nationality: English
Gender: Male
Favorite source for music: Kerrang! and Planet Rock
Activity:
2018 Download festival
Reading festival
bood stock
Camdem festival
slam dunk

36. Focus Group
THIS IS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED FACE TO FACE
SECTION 9

37. Questions
PLAYLIST QUESTION'S
MUSIC QUESTION'S
1) where do you find new heavy metal music ?
2) hot hit (play) do you like this song, how often would you like to hear these songs ?
3) current (play) do you like this song, how often would you like to hear these songs ?
4) throwback (play) do you like this song, how often would you like to hear these songs ?
5) re current (play) do you like this song, how often would you like to hear these songs ?
6) which out of these categories do you like the most and why ?
7) rate the categories 1 to 4
1) out of all the different songs I have played what would you like to hear the most ?
2) between throwbacks and hot hits would you like to hear more in the long run ?
3) would you prefer more currents or re-currents in an hour ?
4) would you prefer for throughout the day the music to get heavier or the opposite ?

38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=kROWFAGcsrE

39. Survey
SECTION 10

40. 1) What is your favourite radio station?
2) Do you like listening to heavy rock music?
3) Would you listen to a heavy metal radio station?
4) What kind of music would you like listen to if there was a
heavy metal station and please give song examples if
possible?
SURVEY STATION
QUESTION'S

41. PREVIOUS YEAR
From the question shown its obvious that
the bigger stations are the ones with
popular music like Capital and Radio 1, but
there is still a small percentage of people
who listen to rock and heavy metal stations.
THIS YEAR
Out of the majority of people most would
listen to heavy rock but as a whole because
I'm doing both categories I'm going to have
the majority with heavy metal and rock
being over half of the answered
percentage.

42. PREVIOUS YEAR
When asked would people listen to a heavy
metal radio station the majority said yes
with 25% saying that the might which
means that the 25% might try the station to
see if they like the music so it has to appeal
to them to get the majority.
THIS YEAR
I used this last question to see the general
music that heavy metal fans would listen to
so i know what is popular among them.

43. Market Research
SECTION 11

44. Radio Station Audience
•The music proposed could be described
as hard rock.
•Radio stations playing rock are showing
good growth
•The target audience is 25-40 so the
opportunity for the listener to discover
new bands is important ( Blyth Road,
Whitechapel, No Resolve etc. )
•Fans are loyal to the genre
•Internet full of conflicting stories, Rock
is Dead or Rock is fastest Growing Genre
•Growth of vinyl and better quality HiFi
will help rock sound better

45. Market research conclusion
Radio is still a popular media.
Digital radio is growing and online radio particularly popular in 25-44 age
range.
Specialist radio stations are growing.
Rock music is described as “resurgent” with a loyal following.
Many people want someone to select good music rather than making own
playlists.
Rock stations are seen as Dynamic, Evolving, Unique and Improving.
My radio station idea fits well with the market research with a target
audience. The focus group allowed me to understand what kind of music
they want to listen too for example, I now know that I need to add 1 song
every hour a small band for new music. The survey as used to understand
how much of an audience percentage there is the listen to heavy metal
and hard rock in my age group.

46. Clock and
Scheduling
SECTION 12

47. Clock Template and Working
while working with my mentor Roger Hall at Global, we decided to use an
image of an old clock to see what kind of timings there will be with adverts
and the different lengths of songs and how many songs.
the first thing we decide to do was to work out how many links we wanted
and the different lengths of the links and this is how it came out
link 1 - top of hour - 1 minute long
link 2 - crunch and roll - 10 seconds into throwback
link 3 - normal - 45 seconds into hot hit
link 4 - crunch and roll - 10 seconds into throwback
link 5 - information update - 1 minute
link 6 - end of hour - 20 seconds
total time = 3 minutes and 20 seconds
After that we decide to work out whether we wanted adverts which we came
to as a yes but not too much because the sub station needs to be able to
make money or it will go off the air and to do that the station needs a
sponsor so we came to the total of 2 minute of adverts should be enough
from there we worked out the total length of the clock at the moment was 6
minutes (including imaging)
Once we worked out the remaining time left in the hour we then worked out
how many songs that would be from the average which came to 14 songs in
the hour from there the songs were split into 4 different catagories.
1) hot hits
2)current
3)recurrent
4)throwbacks
Finally we then came to the conclusion that there would be
hot hits - 1 per hour - repeats every 3 hours - 3 songs in playlist
currents - 6 per hour - repeats every 2.5 hours - 15 songs in playlist
re current - 5 per hour - repeats every 3.5 hours - 18 songs in playlist
throwback - 2 per hour - repeats every 27 hours - 54 songs in playlist
unknown music - 0.5 per hour - repeats every 26 hours - 13 song in playlist

48. Advertising
SECTION 13

49. Visual Advertising
For visual imaging i'm going to do I will use the logo to promote the
station on the Global player app and do events like Download
Festival where there could be a tent just for upcoming bands run by
Xtreme so the brand can get awareness and so can the artists who
perform there, seeing as my station's aim is to bring bands into the
spot light.
As well as that if the station gets a larger amount of views I will
start to use billboards and posters as well as create youtube
content, like finish the lyric to promote the brand more on a Global
status.
The last way I'm going to promote the station is get artists to come
in because a lot of heavy metal bands are from many different place
around the world they can promote the station on there social
media to get more listeners and to raise awareness.

50. Audio Advertising
The advantages of the station being a sub brand instead of a
stand alone station is because it would be backed by a well
known brand like Radio X which would give the station a
good reputaion straight away.
For the audio advertising side of my work it could get
promotion through the Radio X brand. I would do this by
using promos on the radio and having the presenters talk
about the new station to raise awareness. Then I would have
the Global and Radio X social media pages post the station
on twitter, Instagram and Facebook, so it can be shared
between the fans. This will get the word out about the
station and as time goes forward I will do games on the
website and link it on the social media so all ages can get
involved like trivia quizzes on Heavy Metal as well as plug
Download Festival and the different bands.

51. Evaluation
THIS IS THE FINAL CONCLUSION
SECTION 14

52. FromthestartI'velookedintothedifferentstationstoseehowI'mgoing
tocreatemyownandalltogethertheonethingI'veseenisthatthe
stationdoesn'tthriveiftheydon'thavegoodmusic.
IthappenedtoKerrangandmanyotherstations,theywentfromthetop
oftheirgametobeingalmostnothing,sowhatI'mgoingtododifferently
bylookingateachsongandworkingoutwhetheritwouldappealtomy
audience.
Forexample,IusedafocusgrouptoworkoutthekindofmusicIneedand
wetalkedaboutthefactthattherearesomanyamazingbandswhodon't
getachancetobeontheradio.
MostheavymetalfansalwayslookfornewmusicsoIhaveaddedaslotso
every2hoursasmallbandssongwillbeplayedtoappealtothosepeople
tryingtofindnewmusic.
Evaluation

53. ThebestwaytoscheduleisthroughtheuseofGSelectorand
Zetta becauseIcanbaseitaroundthedifferenttimesoftheday,
sothatthemusicwillbeheavierintheeveningthaninthe
morning.Itallowsthelistenertonothavethesamemusic
constantlyandincludesthenewmusicplaylist.
SofromallofmyresearchIknowthatIshouldbuildupthemusic
throughoutthedayandfansofthestationwillknowwhattimeto
listeninfortheirfavouritemusic.
Thefinalthingisthatfansofthestationwon'twantalotofads
butIwanttoworkoutawaysoifsomeoneusesanAlexaina
certainroomlikeakitchen,thenitwillbeabletoplayadsforthat
workspacelikeArgoskitchenads.
Evaluation

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