Radio

Despite being one of the oldest forms of mass media, the radio industry employs 22,000 people in the UK. Radio is most used now in cars yet is still found used on standalone radio devices, however since becoming digital radio can also be played on TVs. Radio can be split into three sections:

• Radio that is funded publicly which is the BBC channels. James Heath, the Policy Director for the BBC said, "The schedules of our radio services are far more diverse than those of commercial stations. As an example, in a typical week, Radio 1 plays 325 different songs in daytime, compared to 140 on Capital FM. Across a month (all hours), Radio 1 plays over 3,200 different tracks – compared to around 200 a month on Capital." Through the money taken from the licence fee, the BBC feel this allows them the ability to provide a greater service to the public; in this case they feel they play a larger amount and a better variety of songs than radio stations that are funded by adverts. The BBC provide all these radio stations through the payment of the licence fee:

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http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/what-does-your-licence-fee-pay-for-top13

• Commercial Radio, which is funded by adverts, such as Capital. The majority of commercial stations serve as local/regional and are owned by one of the 3 dominating companies in the sector; Global (Heart, Galaxy, Gold, Xfm, Smooth Radio and Real Radio), Bauer (Absolute Radio, Kiss and Magic) and UTV (talkSPORT). There are over 300 Commercial Radio stations in the UK, which mostly use FM and DAB frequencies. As well as regional channels, there is also 3 National Commercial Radio stations which are broadcast throughout the UK on either FM or AM, DAB, DTV and online; Classic FM playing only classical music, Absolute Radio featuring rock and pop and talkSPORT which is made up of live sport and debate.

• Voluntary Radio which is often a great way to get some training in broadcasting. Community Radio stations are small and provide training and opportunities for people of all ages wanting to be involved with radio and broadcasting locally. Community stations are often limited to an area within a 5 kilometre radius in which they can broadcast. They are not allowed to raise over 50%  of their operating costs from any single source (this includes advertising) and the rest of the costs needed to run the station must me found from other sources. Hospital Radio is broadcast specifically for the patients of hospitals, it is delivered through bedside units or over the internet. Patients in the hospitals will benefit from this as volunteers trained by the station will often go out into the hospital wards to discuss what music the patient would most like to hear and sometimes even interview them. A lot of now professional radio presenters will of volunteered for hospital radio early on in their career as it works as a training ground for budding broadcasters. Famous and successful broadcasters who began in hospital radio include: Chris Moyles, Scott Mills and Karl Pilkington. Student Radio will broadcast from any place of education, this could be a college or university. Often, programming will be exclusively carried out by the students but can also include individuals from the wider community. These stations will offer a variety of programming, this includes local news, campus sports news, spoken word programmes and music. These stations will also provide airplay and promotion to up and coming local artists.

Speech programming

News Packages
These are typically a formal type of speech package and tend to be straight forward and unbiased. There purpose are to provide in-depth information on current news. Including information and current affairs. Some are short and sweet programmes slotted inbetween other programmes with a brief outline of current affairs, often reading out current headlines that are relevant to the area of the target audience. Some are longer and go into more detail with interviews on the matters as well as the information.
This is an example of one News Package:

Name of Station: BBC News
Name of Show: BBC minute
Target Audience: Adults
Genre: News
Style of programme: Formal

Structure of programme: Begins with introducing presenters and then goes on to the two presenters taking turns reading out various news headlines with a very brief description and some contributing sound effects in the background to create an image for listeners. 
Contributors: Two News presenters, some inputs from bigger interviews.
Legal/ethical considerations: Must be unbiased, just inform people of the news rather than discuss it as it is to be straight forward and being biased towards anything can cause offense and result in having many complaints. Be aware of the target audience if any sensitive topics are to be mentioned by warning people beforehand. Should be relevant to the Geodemographics.

Factual Packages
These can be formal or informal. Ranging from a programme in the style of discussion, magazine, music sequence, documentary or investigative. Their purpose is to inform but also in many cases to entertain as they can be a bit more adventurous with the sound effects and actuality included to really tell a story and create an image for the audience.

Name of Show: Thirty Years Man and Boy - A calmer Chameleon
Target Audience: Boy George fans
Genre: Documentary
Style of programme: informal

Structure of programme: Separated from previous section with the station jingle and introducing presenter. If they talk about a particular song they leave it to play for a while then continue to talk while it quietly plays in the background. The story is told through interviews with various people who have experience with Boy George. Everyone is introduced when speaking apart from Boy George himself.
Contributors: Any legal/ethical considerations: Don't mention personal details of the people they are interviewing. 

Name of Station: BBC Radio 1
Name of Show: Big Weekend Special with Dan, Phil, Jack and Dean!
Target Audience: Teens and young adults
Genre: Entertainment
Style of programme: Informal as it is meant to entertain

Structure of programme: Has Jingle as introduction then introduces where it is and the presenters. There is a narrator introducing who will be talking in the package with a music beds and clips of the presenters talking.
Contributors: Presenters Dan, Phil, Jack and Dean and Snoop Dog as guest 
Any legal/ethical considerations: Need to be aware of their audience so they dont say something offensive while joking on. 

Name of Station: BBC Radio 4
Name of Show: 23 Amazing Reasons this Radio Programme will change your life.
Target Audience: Adults as it keeps stopping tand explaining what terms in social media mean.
Genre: Documentary
Style of programme: Informal

Structure of programme: Jingle. Introduction includes the presenter trying to get the point across about catching peoples attention in the first 7 seconds but explains that this documentary is about that. Cuts to a cluster of overlapping headlines that you would see online on a daily basis. Every now and then the producer steps in to stop the presenter as a staged peice to explain terms that people may not understand. 
Contributors: Presenter speaking about the topic. Producer steps in to cue the presenter to explain terms that listeners may not understand. Other guests to contribute about the topic.
Any legal/ethical considerations: Must be aware when reading out headlines that they are suitable to say on air. 

Target audience shapes the sound of a speech package as when creating a radio show they will need to be aware of their audience, they need to talk about things relevant to that audience and use terms they understand.