radio station - assignment 1 - thomas harris - s 13162685

MED6111 Radio StationAssignment One: Radio Station Specification

ContentsAbout Delirium FM.......................................................3Brand Identity................................................................4

Website.......................................................................4Promotional Material and Merchandise......................4

Thomas Harris – s 13162685


Social Media...............................................................6Demographic of a listener...........................................7

Music programming policy, format, station sound.......8Music Categories........................................................8Distinctiveness of Service...........................................9Presenters..................................................................10News Policy..............................................................10Music Licensing........................................................11

A weekly programme schedule and example of an hour clock............................................................................12

An Example of an hour clock for the ‘Rise and Shine’ show..........................................................................15Track list...................................................................16Financial Viability....................................................16

Future Projects.............................................................17App...........................................................................17Street Team...............................................................18

About Delirium FM

Delirium is an online radio station based in the West Midlands. We aim to be active

24 hours playing a mix of the latest and greatest tunes in the indie and alternative

scene, with different types of shows and playlists to appeal to our target

audience.

2


The main radio stations in the United Kingdom for the past twenty years or so have

seen a consistent and popular rise with pop music, especially from the late nineties

and early 2000’s, with acts like Britney Spears, Spice Girls and S Club 7

predominately taking the main music market and radio airplay by storm as this is what

sells the best usually. However, in the last 10 years there has also been a drastic rise in

indie music becoming popular within the mainstream, with acts such as Arctic

Monkeys, The Gossip, The Ting tings and Kate Nash receiving global success with

multiple albums and commercial radio plays. “Crowds generally congregate on the

basis of their shared taste in music, their consumption of common media and, most

importantly, their preference for people with similar tastes to themselves.” (Thornton,

1995) I feel that this point made my Thornton shows us that audiences will combine

within the same similar style and appreciation of a musical genre – meaning that by

creating a station solely dedicated to this type of a somewhat labeled ‘underground’

genre, it will be able to still have as strong of a following as that of a mainstream pop

music station would have.

Our target audience will be between the ages of 18-25. I feel that this will suit the

station well as it will allow us to predominately aim towards university students as

indie music is very popular within that scene. Most indie club nights in cities are

aimed towards ‘cheap student nights’, showing that the market is there for that type of

genre.

3


Brand Identity

Weather you’re a student or a 9-5 busy adult with a job, Delirium has a passion to

entice its listeners to stay tuned by supplying tunes that will make our listeners not

want to switch off.

After doing some research into indie music, including indie as a fashion, indie club

nights and indie culture – I have noticed that it is usually associated with bright

colors, random images an overall quirky aesthetic. I feel that our logo is simple but

effective – an image of triangles with a clear purple title and guitar silhouette.

Website

For my mock up website design, I decided to have a very simple aesthetic, with a

clear logo with a back and white border of a gradient of different colors, against a

light purple background. I will use primary colors and light hues to give off a

welcoming and east to read look on the page. I feel that this is important so that it can

be accessible on all type of devices but have a strong and consistent look.

Promotional Material and Merchandise

This type of marketing and promotion will consist of very bright and bold primary

colors – such as strong red, yellows, blues, greens and purples which give a

effervescent and exciting aesthetic – something which benefits the businesses overall

corporate image.

We will create various different forms of merchandise. By printing a wide

range of tshirts for example – means we can give a lot of them away through

4


competitions and giveaways through our shows and social media accounts, this means

that by bulk buying a mass amount of tshirts, will allow us to gain free promotion

with listeners wearing our brand in various different locations.

Examples of planned merchandise can be seen below –

5


Social Media

In a society that is constantly changing and allowing new forms of social media

become a major form of social interaction, the station will be heavily focused on

creating a strong online presence with various forms of social media. We will have a

Facebook page which will be kept updated regularly with such planned and scheduled

posts like various debates, funny photos, music facts and news about the station. The

twitter page will be used to create discussions and allow listeners to use various

hashtags relating to the different shows so that we can get some feedback on certain

areas of the station – by telling users to tweet us with a certain hashtag, we can then

monitor the response by searching through the hashtags and seeing the ratio of

hashtag feedback during certain time slots. We will also create a Youtube channel

which will have some videos in a vlog aspect from members of staff within the

station. As vlogging culture is extremely popular currently, I feel that by creating

funny and quirky vlogging videos, ‘a day in the life of a Delirium presenter’ for

example, will allow listeners to gain a personal bond with the station. We will also be

able to monetize our YouTube channel which can provide an extra source of income

when staring out.

6


Demographic of a listener

This is Lewis. Lewis is a 18 year old first year

student studying in Birmingham. He enjoys his

course at uni but is loving the student lifestyle

that comes with it – in particular the clubbing

and social aspect. He regularly attends club

nights around the city and is a weekly regular to

indie club Snobs in Birmingham on

Wednesdays and Propaganda at the 02

Academy every Friday. He feels like he is

betraying his passion for socializing and indie

music if he misses it. Lewis is constantly seen with his earphones in when he is not

walking around with friends and takes pride in his music taste and creating playlists

on Spotify. His all-time favorite band is Arctic Monkeys and has collected all of their

vinyl’s and attends their local concerts when possible.

Lewis wanted to discover some more new indie music and decided to listen to

Delirium FMs New Music show and loved it and is now a regular listener.

Music programming policy, format, station sound

Music Categories

The station will include 5 different types of music categories. These include A list, B

List, Gold, Recurrent and New Local Music.

7


A List - consist of songs that are relatively new and popular and will guarantee the

highest number of plays that week (eg, 25 plays)

Map of the world – City and Colour

The Love Within – Block Party

B List - consist of songs that are also relatively new but still climbing to gain the same

exposure as songs have on the A List (eg 20 plays per week)

Doing the right thing – Daughter

Dancing in the Dark – Hot Chip

Gold – These are classic indie and alternative songs. These songs will be considered

nostalgic and will capsulate the essence of nostalgic listening for our audience

Live Forever – Oasis

There is a light that never goes out – The Smiths

Recurrent – songs that have been largely popular in the last 10 years and are well

known within the indie music scene but still relevant to be played.

I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor – Arctic Monkeys

Standing In The Way Of Control – The Gossip

New local music – I feel its important to support local music and by having a section

of music category specifically catering for this would widely help a lot of upcoming

bands and artists to gain exposure no matter how small it may be.

Lost on Me – Peace

8


Mothers – Swim Deep

Examples of core artists of mainstream indie and alternative music

The Stroke

Arctic Monkeys

The Stone

Roses

Oasis

Blue

Vampire

Weekend

The Kooks

Florence + The

Machine

The White

Stripes

Bon iver

MGMT

Two Door

Cinema Club

Distinctiveness of Service

I feel that although lot of popular music stations play some indie and alternative

songs, such as songs by very popular indie acts such as Arctic Monkeys and Oasis,

there isn’t many main radio stations focused primarily on this particular genre. After

doing some research I have found that the genre ‘Indie/Alternative’ is one of the most

popular playlists and section on Spotifys Discover section – showing that there is a

large online base that focus clearly on listening to a wide selection of indie and

alternative songs.

Some shows on Radio 1 do appeal to an indie market but they are usually quite short

shows and perhaps not at particular times that a lot of listeners would be able to tune

in for.

Presenters

We will aim to have a wide range of presenters from different areas of the region with

a clear and dedicated passion to indie and alternative music. We would like

our presenters to match our types of shows – for example if we were having a

9


nighttime specialist show of classic indie tunes, we would have an older presenter

who was more knowledgeable in this time period compared to that of a younger

presenter and vice versa for our new music shows.

We will also aim to give students studying radio and media related courses

opportunities for work placements to be presenters. They will be given trial shifts and

if successful the opportunity to present weekly shows and able to work their way up

through the station. This is so that we can save costs originally by giving energetic

and passionate students valuable experience for free until we gain a sense of their

commitment to the station.

News Policy

I feel that hourly news is an important feature in a lot of radio stations but feel that for

my target audience a long news segment might not be interesting for that particular

audience. To combat this I have decided to do quick and snappy 1 minute news

updates, with presenters giving reference to our website if they wish to find out more

on the news told – so there will be daily news bulletins on the website where listeners

can find out more if they’re interested.

Music Licensing

“Copyright is the right granted by law to the creators of original literary, dramatic,

artistic and musical works to ensure that copyright owners are rewarded for the

exploitation of their works.

Any person who, without the permission of the copyright owner, does or

authorises someone else to do any of the restricted acts may be liable for what

is known as primary infringement of copyright. In addition, a person may be

10


liable for secondary infringement if he assists in copyright infringement by such

means as handling or selling infringing copies. “

- http://www.prsformusic.com/users/broadcastandonline/radio/pages/

radiolicensingfaqs.aspx

As the station is a community online station we will need to buy a PPL Standard

Webcaster license for a Standard Radio Service (Commercial)

A weekly programme schedule and example of an hour clock

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

8am

– 12

Rise and Shine

12-

4pm

Afternoon Hits Classics at the

Weekend

11


4-

6pm

Latest and Greatest New Music

Weekends

7-

8pm

Chilled out ‘Choons’ Request hour

8-

12am

Energetic Anthems Pre Drinks and

hits

Chilled

out

‘Choons’

12-

2am

Delirium goes quiet

2-

8am

Graveyard shift

Rise and Shine

4 hours dedicated to playing upbeat modern indie songs that will inspire, engage and

entice listeners to wake up with a smile on their face

Afternoon Hits

4 hours of a mix of all of our music categories

Latest and Greatest

A selection of A List, B list and a few from Gold and Recurrent. Aimed to play

upbeat songs for listeners travelling home or doing uni work etc.

12


Chilled Out ‘Choons’

A selection of songs with a moderate tempo and mild dynamics to create a very

chilled and calmed atmosphere

Energetic Anthems

Upbeat and powerful songs that will allow listeners to sing along at the top of their

lungs

Delirium Goes Quiet

A selection of songs that are focused around the sensitive souls – playing slow songs

with emotional connotations and heartfelt lyrics – appealing to the late night wide

awake listeners looking for a chilled atmosphere

Graveyard Shift

A generated playlist of our database with no presenter included

Classics at the Weekend

Songs only from our Gold and Recurrent category, allowing listeners to feel nostalgic

and recognize songs they haven’t heard in a while

New Music Weekends

13


Dedicated to playing brand new songs from A list and New Local Music – giving

listeners a full hour of discovering new music

Request Hour

Allowing listeners to interact with the presenters and tweet, Facebook, text, call and

snapchat requests into the station

Pre Drinks and Hits

Aiming to target our main target audience of students looking for songs to play at

their houses before they go out and socialize

14


An Example of an hour clock for the ‘Rise and Shine’ show

For the breakfast show I wanted to focus mainly on having A list songs so that

listeners would hear the most modern and popular songs at that current moment. As

early morning shows are the most popular, having current songs is a important choice

so that listeners know the station is contemporary and has an up to date knowledge on

songs that are popular and relevant. There are only two brief talking periods for the

presenters as I felt that morning listeners wouldn’t want to hear a lot of talking as they

are probably busy getting ready and doing other early morning activities that could

perhaps turn out to be annoying to hear a lot of talking. The talking near the

15


end of the hour will allow presenters to interact with listeners and maybe give out

some music related news and maybe play a competition or activity like that.

Track list

1. A List – Give it All – Foals

2. A List – Sweet Nothing – Gabrielle Alpin

3. A List – Gold – Years & Years

4. A List – Who Are You? – Spring King

5. A List – Parking Lot – VANT

6. A List – What You Don’t Do – Lianne La Havas

7. Gold – Song 2 – Blur

8. B List – Love Me – The 1975

9. B List – Spill it Out – The Maccabees

10. A List – Queen of Peace – Florence + The Machine

Financial Viability

The station will earn a profit from various different planned forms. We will aim to

strike some partnership and sponsorship with local businesses that relate to our target

audience and overall mission statement and aesthetic. We could perhaps partner with

local indie music clubs (such as Snobs in Birmingham, which we share the same

intended target audience) we could offer listeners tickets to snobs events and in turn

snobs could give away our merchandise and promote our brand in their club.

16


This has proven successful with a partnership previously between the indie club night

Propaganda and indie radio station XFM.

We will also earn some profit from the sales of merchandise as previously explained.

We decided to go with quite a simple graphic logo that could be easily distinguished

as our brand but still a design that is appropriate to wear.

Also previously explained the use of a YouTube Channel will allow us to monetize

original content and span our audience to a worldwide market, which we can use tags

relating to indie music and our station to allow anyone to find our videos and content.

For example, we could host certain challenges and quizzes at the station or when our

proposed street team are doing activities to promote our station and film the activates

and upload this to YouTube. This would then be shared with the people involved in

the video and be able to reach a large audience.

Future Projects

App

Once the station becomes more popular and gains more profit from advertisers and

sponsorships, we would like to create an App for users on iPhone and androids. The

app will allow users to listen, interact and engage with our station easily. Various

different music related articles and stories will be posted, easy links to our shows both

current and previous, and ways to connect their social media accounts to work along

side the app. For example, when a user would log into the app using their

twitter or facebook account, it will allow us to see which form of social media

17


is more popular with our listeners and allow us to target that area of interest more

specifically.

Street Team

I will aim to create a street team for the station to get our name and brand out to

different types of people around the area. I will conduct this by using our social media

accounts and presenters to entice active listeners join the street team and promote the

station and its upcoming competitions etc. through various different means – sharing

posts on their social media, attending local concerts and indie gigs around the area

and handing out flyers. This will be a voluntary job for listeners but will allow them

to gain experience in a job role and they will also be offered incentives such as free

merchandise and event and gig tickets we will be able to organise with companies and

potential future sponsors.

18

radio station - assignment 1 - thomas harris - s 13162685

Documents