The Encore Show
The Encore Show was a early afternoon weekend show based on musicals aimed primarily at people age 25+ and was the show I worked most on. We chose this show to go out live on Children in Need as it was the more popular of our two shows during rehearsals and was also completely different to the other shows airing on the day.
We decided to create out show in a formal style aimed at an older audience as we felt Stratcast only had one primary audience of young people and this would broaden its secondary audience on the Children in Need day. We established our target audience as 25+ with a 50/50 split of male to female listeners who enjoy musicals and listen to radio in the early afternoon.
The main inspiration behind this show was the Elaine Paige show on BBC Radio 2. After listening to the show we picked out a few key points to include in our own show. One point was not using soundbeds under Esme presenting. We felt this would detract from what she was saying by making the show seem less formal and also could create confusion as to what is a musical track and what is soundbed. Another was to tell the audience about the musical the track is from. It may sound obvious however it gives a nice build up to the track and also adds to the formality of our show.
When Compiling the Playlist we considered the fact that this would be a one off show and agreed to use well known songs for all of it, unlike Elaine Page who will only have one or two throughout. To avoid the problem of PRS we looked at past playlists from Elaine Pages show so we could see what is covered by our PRS licence. This proved very useful as it told us what Musicals we could include.
For the show we had three features; Musical Reviews, What is this musical? And A day in the life of a musical theatre student. As well as these we also included a feature by James Blackburn and Greg Clarke. We included this as it was relevant to the theme of our show. I feel the musical reviews were a good addition the show as it helped break it up and gave the listener a break from the main presenter. Although the ‘What’s this musical?’ feature was good, I didn’t feel it was appropriate to our target audience. This is because it was a feature for an audience who tune in to listen not interact Unfortunately the first feature we tried to play didn’t work as it was being played of a Mac through an AUX cable. It would have worked better if it had been put onto the Myriad software. A day in the life was also another good feature and I feel it gave the show another angle on the musical theatre life, telling the listeners how it all begins as well as then listening to what it becomes.
After listening back to the show there are a couple of things I would change, the first being how Esme spoke. As a listener it was obvious she was reading of a script and didn’t seem to just roll off the tongue. I think we would need to rehearse her reading voice to sound more natural and flow-y. The other thing to change is the segways and back introducing as pointed out by Phil. These really did not work and confused me as a listener as I would hear a song then be told about the show itself which made me loose interest as I already hear the song it was all about.
For the live show I was the desk operator with James operating Myriad. We chose to do it like this as it took the pressure off one person and spread it between two. Listening back I think it starts off a bit shaky with me not fading Esme in fast enough however after that it sounds professional with the mic levels of the presenter staying between 4 and 5 and the music levels being 4.
I thought of the main theme for the idents and created some of them. The show could have done with a couple of shorter ones as the two main ones got very repetitive.
Overall if I were a consumer for this show I would be impressed by the amount of information I was getting however I would crave a bit more chat and anecdotes of the musical world to feel more involved in the show.
Tea And Toast
Tea and Toast was an hour-long early morning breakfast show aimed at 16-24 year olds. It worked very well however could have done with being a bit longer. As I was mainly involved with The Encore Show I had very little input. My main role was to compile the playlist used for the show. I was asked to do this as on previous occasions I had put together the playlist it put everyone in a good mood and that is what this show was going for. I only used three current charting songs as I felt older songs had more emotion connected to them making them more feel good. I also included some lesser know songs like Owl City – Bird and the Worm as it adds variety to the show. I also created the Idents and soundbeds for the show.
After listening back to the show a couple of improvements came to mind. The first was to lessen the number of presenters. Quite often they would overlap when speaking which was quite annoying for me the listener. Another Problem was that at times the presenters seemed like a tight group leaving me as a listener feeling excluded from the group. Another was the idents I made dragged out at the start with too many fancy noises and scratches and soon became very annoying.
Ferne Cotton – Radio 1
10AM – 12.45PM
Listened Live
Ferne Cotton is a well-known BBC personality who is always in the public eye. Starting her career as a children’s’ TV presenter she soon moved into music programming and radio, working on Top Of The Pops and becoming the first regular radio presenter of the UK top 40. Her career has progressed as her target audience has grown therefore her voice is very recognisable. As a presenter she is very informal. She is very chatty and will talk directly to the audience as she has no one in the studio with her (except Live Lounge guests) she has a lot of pauses and ‘umms’. She is always trying to add jokes and anecdotes, which engages the audience as they can relate with her, and who or what she’s talking about. She also laughs at herself which shows how relaxed and casual. She ends a lot of her sentences with a downward inflection.
The main feature of her show is The Live Lounge. This is when a selected band or artist come in to a studio and records an acoustic cover of one of their songs and a cover of someone else’s song. Part of the feature is an interview before hand where Ferne asks about up coming tours and just general gossip to appeal to the target audience. The artist has to choose between three songs to cover and then keep it a secret until they play. This feature is split up into sections throughout one hour of the show.
On Ferne’s show you can tell that the primary audience is young adults aged 18-30 through many different factors. One being that it is being aired mid-morning as it would only be people at home or away from jobs who are able to listen. Another way of telling is the style of music they play. It is almost all Top40 tracks from the present and the recent past (5 years give or take) but there is no set theme. It could be R&B, pop, indie, dance etc. This is a lot different to Elaine Page’s show where it is a set playlist theme of musicals.
When presenting, Ferne is usually speaking with no soundbed behind her. This makes the listener focus on what she is saying but also because her presenting style is very energetic it would seem too much for the listener. On the odd occasion that she does stop speaking, because of her presenting style the silence isn’t uncomfortable for the listener as it adds anticipation as to what she will say next. She also has quite a lot of bass added to her voice which can add dominance but in this case makes it easier to listen to her voice. Ferne will also speak or play a radio 1 ident over the opening of songs. This helps promote the station further but also to prevent theft of the track. During a segwayed usually between the two tracks they will use an ident promoting Ferne’s show however they will also play adverts for other shows such as Chris Moyles or Greg James. In the show when the current UK number 1 was played it had its own intro ident saying to listen to the top 40 on Sundays.
As the show comes to a close Ferne starts to chat with the next DJ on air discussing what is going to happen on their show. This is to keep the audience listening to the next show.
Elaine Page – Radio 2
Sundays 1pm till 3pm
BBC iPlayer
On her Show, Elaine Paige talks about different musicals, stage and screen, talking about the actors and the writers of the show.
Elaine Paige has a vast background in musical theatre, which makes her a great personality to present a show on musicals. Her presenting style seems slightly formal but she is cheerful with it, talking directly to the audience with hello or asking a rhetorical question “doesn’t he just make you smile?”. When introducing a song she will generally use an anecdote or even a pun that the target audience may find amusing.
When the show begins after the news it is introduced by an ident ’eighty eight to ninety one FM. Elaine Paige’ and then goes straight into an up beat musical number. When she is speaking, there is no soundbed. This makes it clearer for the listener to hear her and focus on what she’s saying as well as keeping that level of formality. To break the programme up there are a few adverts for other radio 2 shows followed by an ident. The show is split into two “acts”, one before and one after the news.
There is really only one main feature on this show and that is called “Break A Leg”. It basically consists of members of the public calling in to the show to mention the stage shows they are putting on or starring in. A small feature on the side is the Gleeful Moment where they will play a track from the TV series.
All of the songs are musical numbers from film and Stage with the exception of Glee. Elaine Paige will often play the less well known numbers more than the well know. This is because there are only a handful of well-known songs. There is always a wide selection of songs with some upbeat, some slow, some instrumental and some acapella. This is so that the target audience will get what they like as Musical theatre has such a broad range on styles.
oberto – Capital FM Birmingham 102.2
10am – 1pm
Listened Live
Capital FM is a group of regional commercial radio stations. There is no direct sponsor of the station however it does rely heavily on advertisements with an advert break every 10-15 minutes. The ads are for things like the Samsung galaxy S smart phone and shop promotions like argos.
I think these advertisments reflect the target audience well as it is the type of music they would want.The type of music is always top 40; it hasn’t got the variation that Ferne Cottons Show does. I think this is to appeal to a larger audience at all times. All the songs are upbeat and dance-y like ‘Dynamite’ by Taio Cruz and Jenifer Lopez. The songs they play have been very crudely cut to make them shorter so they can fit more music into the show.
When he is speaking Roberto is very chatty in what he is saying, always with either a soundbed or the song intro/outro in the background. It also sounds like he is speaking within a very close proximity of the mic. There is an ident at the start and end of almost every song and ad break. I think that the branding has gone a little far here as it gets very repetitive and annoying. When he is speaking he sounds very energetic but still seems to end all his sentences with a downward inflection, which makes for easy listening.
From the topic of conversation (getting Olympic tickets) and the music style, I would deduce that the target audience is aimed at young adults age 18-30 much like Ferne’s show. This is because it is aired at a similar time so only certain people could listen to it. Most people at this age listen to the radio at work more as background noice and I think this is the reason they try to cram as many songs in as possible.
From what I heard the only features of the show were the ability to get in touch and the news.
