Textual Analysis for music based prgramming

Music based programming analysis
• Chris Moyle’s breakfast show (Radio 1)
• Fern Cotton show (Radio 1)
• Afternoon Drive (Touch fm)
• My SCR

When listening to the above radio shows online, one major point came to light, and this was
That on touch fm (afternoon drive) there was more adverts than anything else, this must make it dificult for local radio stations to get the listeners, and also made it not fluid and unenjoyable to listen to. It was interesting to listen to touch fm in the afternoon, as I realised why so many people tune in to Radio one through the day rather than other radio shows (Rajar shows that in June 2010 radio 1 gathered up 118,100 listeners which is considerably more than other radio station individually). I do think that this is pushed because of the absence of advertising; also Radio 1’s mode of address is fresh, funny and interesting.
The news on both the Chris Moyle’s show and the fern cotton show is fast paced, lasting maximum a time of 3 minutes, so that the listener does not get distracted by something else and tune out of the station. I have found that this works for me, but for an older target audience this could be disappointing. Touch fm’s news was slightly longer , but not a lot longer; between 3 and 4 minutes , but the reading style was a lot more formal and I found that the news reader didn’t address the audience personally as much as Tina daheley. Tina focused on news from around the country particularly tabloid news and sport and I noticed that there was no travel news although there was a quantity of weather updates. Her pitch was low and fast paced suggesting the content was serious, but informative.
I also noticed that Chris Moyle’s uses others in the studio to create banter and laughter, which is infectious, the idea is to make the listener laugh as the presenter laughs, because even if the listener doesn’t find the joke funny they will laugh,there were long pauses used in this perticular part of the show suggesting a punch line, this is often used in comedy sketches. When he spoke, particularly when delivering punch lines, he was high pitched; this proves the content in which he is delivering to be satire. Music style on the fern Cotton show is very much chart based, and most of the tracks played by her have been released in the last year, however when listening to touch fm and My SCR, the music playlists where a lot more varied and would appeal to most target audiences, particularly touch fm played a lot 80’s pop and ballads including ‘Patrick Swayze –She’s like the wind’ and ‘Ben E King – Stand by me ‘
Although there are many differences and contrasts in the mode of address throughout the different radio shows, I have found similarities in touch fm’s presenting style and the Chris Moyle’s show presenting approach. The chat and banter between the studio guests and presenters is very similar in style.
On the fern cotton show, she has no-one in the studio with her to help her present the show, so she uses music to its optimum capacity to keep the listener interested, her prejection was relaxed and flowed well through her speech although her pace was fast, and used long paused in between sentances, to try and elongate the dialogue. Although she is on her own, this helps her to be more direct to the listener, it makes the experience more personal perticularly if you are listening in private. She does talk to the listeners but for a very short amount of time, keeping her pitch low and relaxing and her pace slow when talking about topics, but fast when she is introducing a song she also uses phone ins, and emails to create topics. The interview with Kim Kardashian was very different from the rest of the show, the pitch was alot lower, and there was alot less pause inbetween what they were saying to each other, I think this was to make it less boring for the listeners. When she stated that you could view her (the presenter fern cotton) and Kim having their interview through webcam live on the website. The Radio one shows both Chris Moyle’s and Fern Cotton, you were able to do this, which I think is used as another medium of introducing people to the station. This helps encourage members of the public who don’t enjoy radio because of the lack of visuals to become listeners of the station. It also helps the listener to understand what is going on in the studio.
Whilst I found this a particularly promising new medium, I was disappointed to find that My SCR and Touch fm did not include this medium into their shows. But once I had thought about why this could be, my conclusion to this was that there are so many adverts on both of these commercial radio shows that there would be no point in using it.
My SCR, like the Fern Cotton show, was nearly completely music based. There was very little chat, and when the presenter did chat, it was very mellow and relaxed. The music and chat was frequently interrupted by a short introductory advertisement. This would be a good thing if you enjoy on music to listen to but I enjoy some chat for Background Company, and a lot of the time it is funny. This could be again disappointing to the listener. The Music on My SCR was overall of a rock and dance genre, and would not appeal to a wider target audience.