Thursday, 24 May 2012

Evaluation - Report

Our radio demos Pulse FM and Wise FM were created by myself and Clare Wapshare, Pulse FM was designed to be a contemporary hit radio station located in the south coast of england.  We targeted it at young adults from the age of sixteen. The station aims, even though it is a breakfast show, to make the listeners feel informed, Chilled out, Comforted and alive. The target audience was chosen because it is one of the largest age brackets that listens to the radio in todays society. We described our target listener as  creative, likes to keep up-to-date with the latest chart music, they like being very social and most likely are still to be in education (weather that is school, college or university.). In there lives music would be one of there big things, a soundtrack to there day.


Through out making our demos we tried to make sure that every detail fitted to the style of the station and to our  target audience. The jingle was the first thing we decided to create as this is how the audience remembers us, we started by getting a track from a band that we knew the audience would be interested in. We chose Lies by McFly and then using audacity blended it in with a heartbeat: they were then sped up in a sense of waking the audience up on this early morning breakfast show. This then gave us a theme to follow when it came to things such as the logo,  keeping it to a red and black colour scheme fitting in with the style the audience may have. Our questionnaire showed split feelings on the jingle and the logo; some people saying that they had nothing to do with the style of the station and that it did not relate to the name of the station to others saying that they looked and sounded very professional and creative.


This then leads on to the playlist; when planning the music for our CHR  we had a look at the BBC Radio One Top 40 chart list to get a idea on what we should play seeing as our target audience like the utmost latest music. We ended up picking the following songs as our playlist as they fitted the up-beatness of the station and were in the top position on that charts at the time.




This is this weeks playlist as you can see still very similar to what we chose.

When it comes to the audience research segment when we were giving our presentation we found that the group was split on things such as our music choices. Some members of the class commented on its suitability through its connection to the charts; at the fact that it works with what the audience would be looking for, and they said that they would listen to all the time or occasionally. However, some members said “the music is too mainstream”. Some of the comments made do seam completely unfair and out of the blue such as: "the logo/jingle have nothing to do with the station" When you can clearly see that they do, there is a pules line in the logo and a heartbeat in the jingle, as the station is called pulse FM. There were also comments to do with the music being to main stream. The station is a CHR one that we aimed to be similar to capital FM and it is stated in what our target audience wants and one them is main stream music.

All though i agree with some of the improvements, some of it seamed biased and this could of been because of a problem that has been going on with said individuals for a while and they don't seam to have a good opinion to anything that me and the other member in my group do.


With weather it fits to the conventions of radio and in particular the formats CHR and Gold I think that they do when we created our demos we decided to stay to the forms for radio rather than trying to change or challenge them, creating our demos to fit into the radio stations you hear today but just be that slight bit different but not enough to challenge the conventions of radio.

When it comes to our target audience and weather our demos are appropriate and fits with the wants and needs for them I think we have done quite well. I don’t think any of our topics we have chosen to use would be inappropriate to our audience and the music we have picked would fit in well with our target audience’s life style.

Compared to our original plans I don’t think a lot has changed to our actual plans seeing as even though the dynamics of the group has changed and we have had to take on more work between two of us, we have still stuck to the original ideas as to how we want the demos to be like.   



Over all I am very happy with how our demos turned out the fact that I have never created anything audio based means that I have learned a lot from this. When it comes to the strengths and weaknesses of myself on this assignment I think there is an equal amount of both, when it comes to my strengths they would be things such as; My logo I think that I presented it well and represented the radio station to how we wanted, I also made the playlist for Pulse FM I think the music relates to the target audience well. Another strong point I think was using audacity and starting to learn to edit. On the other hand some of my weaknesses would be things such as my communication skills when recording the vocal I think I could have spoken more clearly and to more of a steady pace but I know all this just comes with practice. Another weakness was some part of the editing as I found some parts more difficult than others. 

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Evaluation - Subject Terminology


CHR – contemporary hit radio

 Format – the type of style the radio station is

Ofcom -  office of communications

Audacity
– A sound editing program for both macs and pcs

Mic – A piece of recording equipment used to record sound e.g. vocals

Audio- anything from music to vocals
up to the vocal- where the presenter talks right up in till the vocals come in to the song.

Ad’s- Advertisement, that would be suitable to the target listener

Bed- a bit of music underneath news or speech

Production- how the radio is created, from how it is put together to what is on the script.

Program controller – They make sure everything is politically correct

Presenter – The front man/woman of the radio program, they lead the way and make sure the audience are involved.

Jingle – This is a little bit of music that is personalized to the radio station, its how the listeners normally tell them apart and remember them.

Playlist – this is the list of music that is played

Running Order – The general order of the station at given times.

Fade – This is an effect used when editing the audio.

Script – some text that the presenters used to know what they have to say and can say.

Forward promotion – This is promoting the radio station, making it more known to the public. Way of keeping people listening for longer.

Evaluation - Evaluating FeedBack

What worked really well with your demo/ presentation? Is there any areas that you scored consistently high marks?

Overall the feedback was fairly cut down the middle,  there was a consistent amount of compliments on one half but on the other half there were some improvements to be made which is fair as you cant expect everyone to like it.

All though i agree with some of the improvements, some of it seamed biased and this could of been because of a problem that has been going on with said individuals for a while and they don't seam to have a good opinion to anything that me and the other member in my group do.

Some of the comments made do seam completely unfair and out of the blue such as: "the logo/jingle have nothing to do with the station" When you can clearly see that they do, there is a pules line in the logo and a heartbeat in the jingle, as the station is called pulse FM. There were also comments to do with the music being to main stream. The station is a CHR one that we aimed to be similar to capital FM and it is stated in what our target audience wants and one them is main stream music.

The good points though,  focused on the clarity of some parts of the audio, the professionalism of the logo and jingle also the up-beatness of the music.


What do your questionnaires tell you that you could have done better?

The main point was across it all was about the volume of the music in the news bed. It was requested that it was made a bit louder. Apart from that there were no other real improvements requested.




Evaluation - SWOT

Strengths -
- Finding the music and making sure it fits to our target audience.
- Creating the Logo.
- Our Speech content
- Using audacity
- Keeping organized, so knowing what we need when we need it.

Weaknesses -
- Keeping Calm when conflicts occur
- Communication skills, having a clear and calm voice

Opportunities -
- Being able to be create a radio demo to a high standard.
- Learning to use new equipment such as audacity and improving skills such as editing.
- Creating a logo

Threats -
- People not doing there share of the work, This situation happened when a member of the group was not puling there weight.
- The group numbers changing which meant more pressure.
- Getting Stressed.


Evaluation - Questionaire Results

1. Does the audio meet listener needs?
Yes: 
9                       No: 0

Why:
- It has music from the charts
- It is upbeat and makes people want to get up
- Type of music goes well with the radio station
- If you listen to CHR radio stations, it will attract them
- Relevant song choices for young people. Relevant choice of competition
- Because
- Upbeat, friendly speech to keep interest and the music is relevant to the charts
- It suited the target audience
- The music used fits nicely with the audience

2. Would you listen to this station?
Yes: 
4                      No: 4                      Sometimes: 1

Why?
Yes:

- Has a good mix of music, news, competition and banter
- It has a good range of segments
- Because I like to listen to chart music
- Because it includes up to date songs, it sounds interesting, it's something new
No:
- It's not really what I listen to
- I don't like 'mainstream' music, and the features don't really suit me personally. I don't listen to radio.
- Not really my style of music
- Not that interesting to be honest
Sometimes:
- Purely because I like Indie/Rock/Specialist music, so would listen to this station in moderation; like I so Capital.

3. What improvements could be made on audio content?
- Audio is too quiet. Heartbeat in link doesn't fit with music and the man talking sounds too creepy.
- The heartbeat didn't mesh well with the song, I don't think.
- News bed volume a little quiet when speech come in, however no real improvements on actual content.
- :/ ?
- I honestly don't know, it was really good.
- Less talking, more music, speech on the news is not loud enough
- Can't hear properly in the final link
- Could be louder, slower and clearer
- None

4. What do you like/dislike about the station? (Music, logo, etc.)
- Logo doesn't really fit; should have something to do with a heart. Music does fit.
- I don't like the music really. Logo interesting, different to things out there.
- Jingle sounded very professional. Very good logo.
- Like the logo and the jingle - go well with the name of the station, and the jingle is clear.
- The logo is good. Music is okay-ish. Audio sounds too enthusiastic. Playlist is too mainstream.
- Professional logo and the content matched your target audience. Liked the opening, was upbeat and cheerful.
- Good station name and creative jingle to match it. Only thing to improve is the audio quality - needs to be clearer.
- Love the logo. Jingle is really good! Enthusiastic speech! Clare is really clear speeking.
- I like the jingle, this is because it interprets the name of the radio.

5. Do you think the music choices are suitable for our target audience?
Yes: 9                              No: 0

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Evaluation - Presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/12846567

Evaluation - Link to Presentation

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/546169/pulse-fm-presentation

Here is a Link to our presentation.