Radio Journalism - Lecture 2

Here are my notes on our second radio journalism lecture; we have found out that different government bodies for TV and Radio show the different ratings and figures that radio / TV stations have and these are:

TV – BARB (figures for TV)

Radio – RAJAR (figures for radio)

When it comes to target audiences and demographics, I mentioned in my last radio post that the target audiences are divided up into different frameworks, when it comes to social class it is done like so:

A – Upper middle class, professional

B – Middle class, management / well paid jobs

C1 – Lower middle class, junior management, desk worker

C2 – Skilled working class, skilled manual workers

D – Working class semi, unskilled manual work

E – State pensions / depending on welfare to live

How to carry out a good interview

Generally, a good interview will sound like a unscripted conversation, but to get to that stage you will need to have a good knowledge of the equipment that is being used, for example knowing how to work thee recording devices properly and not messing it up (certainly not like what I did once when recording someone a on our task last week...) and also it doesn't hurt to have sensible questions, obvs. When it comes to the recording devices you must make sure that before you set off to record you know the device is actually working / has enough battery power but if not then just buy / have some spare batteries with you, oh and I mentioned earlier make sure you’re recording...

You must be careful when working with the microphones and this is because they can be very sensitive so make sure you don’t rustle and paper or plastic bags near them and make sure to not move around too much otherwise the microphone will pick it up and it will ruin the quality of the recording. You must also make sure that you plug the microphone in to the correct port, otherwise, well you know, it won’t pick up sound...

When it comes to recording you must make sure that if you balls up what you’re saying like when asking a question or replying, don’t turn off the machine or stop recording, just try again because after all you can edit it out when you upload it on to your computer later, so don’t worry! You will want to have some ambience when recording, because it just adds some nice background noise to your recording, essentially giving it more authenticity.

Choosing a place to record is also important; you shouldn’t always go for a silent room, consider what sounds are around you because they will add to the recording, eg the sound of a heater or various other machines will then be in your recording and possibly drown out someone speaking. Try to avoid rooms with echoes (unless of course you want that in there) but if necessary try standing next to curtains or furniture because that will help the recording.

Your questions are very important when conducting an interview, a good interview will essentially sound like an unscripted conversation, so following this you mustn’t write out a huge list of questions that you want to get in there, it’s better to make a few notes / ideas or have a few questions that you can build on. Make sure that you listen to the answers, so if something interesting is said then help develop it by asking supplementary questions, but remember that in general questions should be straightforward and simple, plus pretty simple but one question at a time. 

Finally, the last few things to remember are no closed or leading questions, make sure you do your research beforehand and when a participant is answering make sure you don’t talk over them, just nod silently until they finish talking. Well, this concludes my blitzing of blog posts, I think this has been a productive start to a Sunday, hope you enjoyed oh and I’ll try and keep on top of it now, im slowly getting back into the University routine of just blogging not because I have to but because I want to, im getting there but yeah, hope you’ve enjoyed avid readers.

Stay classy x