Newsgathering Part 2

Here are the links too all the final stories that myself and my group have chosen to include in our final broadcast:

Story 1: Investigation into New Year's Armed Robbery



Story 2: Suspected Bomb





Story 3: Ryde Arena Repairs





Story 4: Island Antarctic Explorer




Story 5: Random Rooms Attraction




Story 6: Festival Announcements




Story 7: Islander Writes New Song

News Gathering

Here is a Prezi, outlining the initial stages of my online news gathering:  s

Ideal Listener Profile

This is Kate, a sixteen year old from the Isle of Wight. Kate listens to the radio on average four times a week. She usually listens to the radio when she’s in the car with her family or boyfriend via the car’s FM Radio, however she also listens sometimes on bus journeys or when she’s on the train via her pre downloaded apps for specific radio stations as accessing stations via the internet on her phone via 3G or 4G is expensive and far more complicated. Occasionally she will listen to the radio when it is quiet at work on the weekends. Kate listens to local and regional stations, rather than national stations, as she finds the content more relevant and interesting to her. Kate doesn’t care or have a preference of radio news bulletin genders, as long as they speak clearly and are easy to understand. Kate also prefers them speaking at a normal speed, rather than a faster pace than normal like some national stations do, as she wants to ensure the news she is listening to makes sense to her. She doesn’t mind the news reader having a specific accent either, as long as it isn’t incredibly outrageous such as strong American or Australian accents, as she is listening to British stations. She prefers it when news readers vary their vocal tone and the emotion with which they read stories, dependent upon their content, such as how serious they are and whether it is a positive news story. If they don’t, she will disengage from the broadcast. Kate likes listening to the news programmes in the morning as they catch her up on the news in her area that she might’ve missed otherwise. Kate loves entertainment, such as TV, films and going to festivals with her friends, as she loves following and being a fan of new bands. She also likes to know the weather, regardless of what time she listens to the station, as it helps decide her outfit that she’ll wear, what transport she will take and if she needs to take an umbrella to make sure her hair doesn’t get soaking wet! Kate hates political and economic news as she normally finds it isn’t relatable to her area or to young people either – it’s boring too! She doesn’t mind listening to short sport news stories, however if there is more than one in a broadcast, she will stop listening to it, as it doesn’t interest her at all.  Kate likes radio news as it tends to be less effort than reading the local paper and also usually condenses stories to only the vital and important information which is great as Kate is normally quite busy. She likes being able to hear what’s happening in her local area, as she wants to know if anything is happening that could directly impact upon her. Kate also loves radio news, as they tend to get the inside gossip and first news about bands, celebrities and music acts before it is broadcast on TV or mentioned on social media as news bulletins are very regular. She also likes knowing the information is legitimate, rather than it being questionable like on social media sites. However, she doesn’t like it when news bulletins repeat stories or have too similar stories in the same bulletin. She loves a variety of hard and soft news, however prefers to hear the main hard news at the start of the bulletins, so that she is clear what’s important in her area. She likes personalised stories, when there is outside broadcasts from people related to the story as she thinks it makes the story more rounded and also more detailed.

Structure Changes After Audience Research Results

Within our survey, question 6 asked whether our target audience preferred to have a male or female news reader, to which all but one participant replied they didn't mind. Therefore, we have decided to have Max, the male member of our group read the main news segment, then have myself reading other specialised news segments such as entertainment and Franky, another female member of our group, being the OB reporter that provides the voicer's and introduces/asks the questions in the Vox pop's that we will include in the bulletin. They didn't mind about the gender of those reading the news, thus, it makes sense to have a mixture of both genders, as this is common in most local station's bulletins, like the one we are producing.

In the questionnaire in which we sent out to the members of our class, question 6 asked 'Which gender of news reader do you prefer?', to which almost every member of the class answered with 'no preference'. So as a group we decided that Max would be an ideal presenter for our news radio bulletin because he is confident and has a clear voice.

Olivia who will be our entertainment news reporter, reporting on the gossip and music news. This was chosen because again the participants said they did not have a preference to who they would like to present their news and it would makes sense to have a mixture of different gender news readers.

I will be the OB reporter, reporting live from the location in which will be mentioned using a voicer, a vox pop will also be used in the middle of copy stories.

6 people thought weather was very important,

14 said weather was important,

out of 25 participants, 80% thought that including the weather in our broadcast should be included. This is because they believe it has great importance to the broadcast compared to Sport for example.

Both males and females answered that sport was not very important to them which contradicted our first thoughts of including 1 minute of sports news into our bulletin; consequently we've decided to remove it. We will replace it with 30 seconds weather reports due to it being more popular then sport, even with the male participants

16 participants answered that 'Entertainment news' was important to a radio news bulletin, this is more then we expected from our target audience therefore we will dedicate 30 extra seconds to our original time of 1 minute air time for Entertainment news.

Politics feedback returned quite positively.

4 answered that it was very important while 16 answered that it was important.

This is more then we first expected; therefore we've decided to include 30 seconds of politics news, most likely copy stories so the audience don't get bored. Also we will try and make them relevant to our area and age as much as possible, how it will affect us and how we can have our say.

The results for music news varied greatly, we believe liking this news type is dependent on having a personal interest in music. Generally entertainment news is valued as more important so we have decided to not include specific music news in the bulletin but instead include a music related story in the entertainment section.

Updated Timetable: 

News: 2 minutes 30

Entertainment (Including music story): 1 minute 30

Weather: 30 seconds

Politics: 30 seconds

Target Audience Research Survey

In order to discover the likes and dislikes of our target audience and to refine down the conventions and content we will use in our bulletin, we devised this survey and got 25 people within our desired target audience to fill them in, in written format, to avoid mistakes in results which I have found before when using an online survey tool such as Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey also limited the number of questions I could ask, thus, I didn't use it and instead collated the results manually....

Here is a rough draft of the survey:

Target Audience Survey from oliviagarnerasmedia

We later improved the survey, to include the following questions so we could discover which areas of news our target audience liked the most and more:


Rate from Important (1) to Least important (6) the following:
Sports news, political news, entertainment news, music news, travel news, weather

Do you like a music bed underneath the news? (Yes or No)
If yes, what kind of music? (Independent Answers)

Do you like the use of stabs to break up stories or differentiate between news segments? (Yes or No)

Planning Initial Stages - Local Radio Station Name

For our local radio station, we have chosen the name 'Rebel Radio.' We used this name for our preliminary task and felt it was suitable enough to use for our Main Task. 

Before deciding upon a name, we chose our target audience:
-14-18 
-More females than males
-New British music lovers

We then decided to research names. Max found a random radio station name generator to get us started. They were incredibly unsuitable for our station as they weren't suitable for our station's target audience aimed at a young audience as it produced names such as: 

-Wise FM
-Route 81 Radio 
-Smooth Groove FM

After creating approximately 20 names we decided the names weren't appropriate. They didn't include youthful vocabulary like we wished to include, that was snappy or catchy, instead, they contained relaxed words, such as 'Smooth Groove FM' which includes too many o sounds which slowed down the reading of the station name and consequently it sounds like a very relaxed station - a stark contrast to the upbeat, youthful station we wished to create. 

Wise FM we felt was too aged for our station. It sounds as if it is aimed at an older target audience, as the connotations of wise suggest. We felt that FM also limited the station being available on one platform only. We wanted our station to be available on many different platforms, like modern radio stations are, as we understood that the majority of our target audience would access the station on modern platforms such as online, via TV or DAB, rather than purely FM listening for example in cars. Therefore, we as a group decided not to include FM in our station name as it limited down the platforms that the audience thought they could listen to the station on.

Finally, Route 81 Radio is not geographically appropriate for our station. We wanted it to be focused upon new, upcoming British music, thus, this reference to a road in America wouldn't be appropriate. It could creating a misleading view of the station that it broadcasts American related content, whereas we only wanted to broadcast British content. However, we did like the alliteration of Route and Radio, therefore we decided we wanted to include alliteration within our station name, as it is incredibly catchy and easy to remember. Finally, it adds a youthful vibe also, as it somewhat rolls off the tongue.

We then decided to find words that were youthful in order to find one beginning with R to alliterate it with 'radio'. We found words such as rhythm, raw, raving, rush and finally found Rebel. Immediately we all loved it and thus, after a group vote, all 3 of us decided that 'Rebel Radio' was perfect for our station.