Sunday, July 12, 2009

America’s NPR Network Review

The NPR National Public Radio in the U.S.A is a private and public funded, non profit membership media organization that was created in 1970 and syndicates to 797 public radio stations across the United States.

The station produces and distributes news and cultural programs that are then sent to other public radio stations. However these individual public radio stations are not forced or required to broadcast everything that NPR produces.

NPR consists of program segments of stories that affect the people of America. While listening I encountered a story about birds migration across America and a radio presenter attempted to follow the birds migration.

Some of the programs on NPR are:
• All Songs Considered
• Jazz Profiles
• Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! NPR News quiz
• On Point: public affairs call in show
• The Diane Rehm Show: public affairs call-in show
• Latino USA
• Justice Talking
• On the Media
• American Radio Works
• America Abroad
• Car Talk
• Says You!
• The Business
• World CafĂ©
• Engines of Our Ingenuity

While the air of the programming does not seem to be quite as serious as the BBC World’s Service it is still quite formal and informative. I preferred listening to NPR rather than the World Service as NPR changes direction and themes quite often and has segments and little stories constantly rather than focusing on major issues for long lengths of time.

Interestingly in a poll conducted by Harris in 2005 found that NPR was the most trusted news source in the U.S.A

Thursday, June 25, 2009

BBC World Service Review

BBC’s World Service is an international broadcaster that is widely considered one of the best and is broadcasted currently in 32 languages to most parts of the word via internet, analog and digital shortwaves.

It is a politically independent, commercial free and non-profit ran radio show. It streams 24 hours a day and on average was a weekly audience of over 188 million people. It is serious news and current affairs radio station.

The feeling of the BBC World Service is that of a formal and informative radio broadcaster service.

Programming consists of:
• The World Today
• Newshour
• World Briefing
• The Strand
• Sportsworld
• World Have Your Say

Often on the weekends they include live commentary of the Premier League (English Football League) matches. This programming is informative and formal.
However it gives the listeners and chance to interact with the entire world. In World Have Your Say listeners are encourage to participate in a discussion involving current world events. This is a unique experience for many people as it easily gives a chance to hear peoples opinions from across the world.

The Music Shows Review

The Steve Show on BBC’s 6Music station was a music based show that ran from 2007-2009. It was hosted by Stephen Merchant and co-anchored by his long-time friends Dan, Harry and Rufus. These co-anchors were essentially nobodies other than Steve’s friends. However this made for interesting, funny and unique radio as the announcers didn’t necessarily follow all the radio broadcasting protocol.

Features within the show included:
• Hip Hop Hooray
• Cover Me Up
• Songs to Seduce Women By
• The Fiendishly Difficult Music Question
• Songs to Nurse a Broken Heart
• Search for a She-J

As the show was very blokey Steve decided to conduct the segment ‘Search for a She-J’ where they invited women to send in tapes and mp3’s of women wanting to join the music panel and co-anchor the show. Eventually Sammy was picked and joined the team.

Earlier this year the show has taken a break due to the fact that Steve is currently working on a movie with Ricky Gervais and the website left a refreshing quote saying: "Our man's off to glamorous tinseltown, where the Hollywood execs will puzzle over what on earth he's talking about with that Brizzle accent! Bon voyage, Stephen, see you at 6 Music again soon...remember, we understand you!".

What made Steve’s show interesting, funny and different was the freshness of the presenters who were not professional dj’s or announcers. They were strictly music junkies and friends of Steve’s.

This gave the show a freshness and also an opportunity to have real discussion on music that they loved without the pressures of radio formality.

XFM The Ricky Gervais Show

The Ricky Gervais show on XFM is a collaboration that stars Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. The show initially started in November 2001 on XFM London and aired weekly from 2001-2005 off and on. After this success from XFM the show was made into an audio book from the Guardian Unlimited and set as podcasts to download. They have some become the worlds most downloaded podcast with 281,670 downloads per month and in 2006 BBC revealed that all together the shows have been downloaded over 8million times.

The shows main topics of discussion are:
• Educating Ricky
• Knob News
• Cheeky Freak of the Week
• Rockbusters
• Monkey News
• Songs of Phrase
• White Van Karl
• Karl’s Diary
• Song for the Lovers
• Song for the Ladies
• Hip Hop Hooray
• That Film Sounds Good
• Do We Need Them?
• Karl’s Film Quiz

The show has many features that are comedy based and revoler around Karl as the central comedian. However the show has a very relaxed feel to it and it sounds like it is just three mates having a conversation and the microphones just happen to have been left on.

It is this feeling that drove so many listeners to the show and to eventually download it as a podcast.

The show also has many competitions and phonein’s for the audience to get involved in. Two of the most famous competitions were Rockbusters and Karl’s Film Quiz.

Rockbusters gives a cryptic clue that the audience has to work out what which results in a band or artist. For example: exploding pet. Answer: Atomic Kitten.

Karl’s Film Quiz involved inserting Karl into major films with him doing lines of other characters to change the movie. This were very popular and very amusing.

The success of the Ricky Gervais Show can further be seen by the dedication put in by fans by creating their own fan Wikipedia website on the show at:

http://www.pilkipedia.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Talk Radio - Derek Guille Evenights 774am Review

Derek Guille’s program on 774 ABC radio is broadcasted across Victoria nightly from 7pm-10pm. It is a mix bag of a show that complies several main ingredients for its success. There is:
• Talkback
• Live music
• Quiz
• Guests
• Weekly segments
• Comedy segments
• And listener emails
What makes Derek’s program such a success is his connection with his listeners. He really talks directly to them and often asks them to call up to hear their opinions on the matters.

Each evening Derek poses a question or statement at the start of the show that has affected him during the day or political news for example. He then asks the listeners to phone in and give their opinions on the matter. While I was there Derek discussed the Ute-Gate incident, Nicolas Sarkozy’s opinion on Middle Eastern dress standards and the global crisis to name but 3.

After the hour of talkback they play some music usually from the music guest that will be joining them that evening.

At 8.30pm he has the 10min quiz with callers. When the 10min is up whoever is on live radio wins.

Derek will then for the last hour have the live music and talks with the musicians about their tours or upcoming cd to be released.

What I think that makes Derek such a success on radio in the evenings is that he invites you to come on the journey for the night with him. And to enjoy the live music as he does and ring up if you have anything to say. There is a very 2 way feeling throughout the show between the host and listener.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

German Doco

Radio Doco Plan
“Learning a language”

Topic: Learning a language


Synopsis:
I am currently learning German so this is personal journey of me struggling to understand and grasp a new language. But at the same time I live in a house with other internationals so it will be a tale of how they have struggled to get comfortable with English and become fully emerged in the English culture and that it is constantly a learning experience.

Interviews:
Myself
Anna
Hijiri
Pauline
Tessa

Actuality:
Talking German in the background

Research:
101 million native (88 million Standard German, 5 million Swiss German, 8 million Austrian German), 60 million second language in EU[13] + 5–20 million worldwide.
German is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union.

Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers. Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities and Goethe Institutes worldwide.

German is the third most taught foreign language in the English speaking world after French and Spanish.

Intro:
German is one of the world’s major languages and the most prolific spoken mother tongue amongst the European Union. Approximately 185 million people can speak German native speakers and non-native speakers alike and it is widely taught in schools and universities.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Triple M's Football vs 774 Grandstand Cricket Radio Review

Maybe it is just the sport that made the commentating different and the association that people have with particular sports that made the differing broadcasts of sport very contrasting. When I compared Triple M’s football broadcast and 774’s cricket there was a vast difference.

This can be attributed in some part to the nature of the sport. For example football (AFL) is a rough man’s man sport. It is often thought of as Australia’s past time but similarly it has attached itself sometimes to a violent nature and an uneducated person. While contrastingly cricket invented by the British is thought of more as a gentleman’s game where fights and bad language do not enter the equation.

These differences were only exemplified by the fact that Triple M’s radio team for Monday’s clash between St Kilda and Collingwood was over the top masculine. Firstly Jason Dunstall referred to Shane Crawford and James Brayshaw as “poofs” for wearing the color pink. This kind of innuendo isn’t really required on a football commentary and seemed very unprofessional and actually quite bigoted. They discussed this “poof” issue about pink for about 5 minutes until Stephen Quatermain really regained the control of the show.

On the other hand 774’s Radio Grandstand Cricket in the summer is informal to an extent but not this kind of banter. The jokes that they would make between the commentators are usually factual about cricket or what is happening currently on the pitch. They do not refer to their home life or joke about appearances of each other for example.

774’s Grandstand in my opinion is a class above Triple M’s commentary of the football. While they are more serious they are not too solemn with their commentary and still have jokes and banter between the hosts. It is more that the level and in-depth commentary that 774 presents is informative and enjoyable to listen to while Triple M’s is juvenile.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Drive Radio Review

The Hamish and Andy radio drive show has had monumental success across Melbourne and Australia as it is broadcast on the Today Network to every state in Australia from 4pm-6pm in the weekday.

Roughly 2 million listeners each day listen to Hamish and Andy's antics as the comedy duo succeeds in the drive slot. They also offer there show as a podcast on the internet and have 240,000 monthly downloads.

One of the reason's why Hamish and Andy are successful is their light banter and show packed full of stupid and funny segments such as:

•The Peoples' Chip
•The People's Greyhound
•Trip to Afghanistan
•Caravan of Courage
•Caravan of Courage 2: Who Dares Dar-Wins
•The Tall Ship Adventure
•Blast from the Past
•Tell 'Em They're Dreamin'! (The Trading Post Game)
•Race to find celebrities
•Experimental as Anything


Having segments like this makes the listen's wanting to tune in each weekday to hear their favorite comedy segment. In 2008 they won:

2008 ACRA Best On Air Team[5]
2008 ACRA Best Show Producer – Entertainment & Music (Sam Cavanagh)
2008 ACRA Best Station Promotion (Caravan of Courage)
2008 ACRA Best Networked Show

While Hamish and Andy rely heavily on segments and call-up gags Roy and HG rely mainly on there spontaneity and knowledge on sports and recent news. HG has been quoted as saying their show is "making the serious trivial and the trivial serious."

They joke about the seriousness that Australia takes sport and blend this with the current affairs of the nation and the world. For example holding the next Rugby League match in Baghdad.

Their awards include in radio only:
17 years of radio & television work Outstanding Performers 2001 winners
17 years of radio work Outstanding Networked Radio Comedy Performance 2003

While both drive shows are very different both share comedy and chat as their grounding root which for many listeners is why they choose in. They tune in to hear an old friend talking rubbish and joking on the long car trip on the way home from work.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Breakfast Radio Review

Listening to Triple M and Nova breakfast show's only reinforced the statement that Australian commercial stations are becoming increasingly the same. Triple M consists of Pete, Myf and their silent anchor. Nova's breakfast show is hosted by Hughsey, Kate and Ed. Their content and format is basically the same revolving around promoting TV shows on that night, competitions, cross promotions of afternoon show's, news updates and traffic conditions.

The relationship between Hughsey and Kate is quite close as they seem like they ahve been friends for a while. Kate quite often disagree and pretends to be shocked by his antics. While Pete and Myf's relationship is too nice. They never argue or disagree on anything and merely repeat each others opinions.

Both stations are quite informal as they interrupt the news and just casually chat in between numerous ads. These hosts are comedians however struggle to make jokes. Hughsey just complaints, Kate's jokes revolve around her kids and childbirth as she seems to think that she is the first women to have children while Pete's jokes revolve around footy and fart jokes.

XFM Interview

Karl Pilkington Interview - White Van Karl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5uGjNAyqBI&feature=related

The Interview is a 3 way exchange between Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant and Karl Pilkington. This is a informal interview style where Steve and Ricky ask Karl questions on the weeks news and Karl answers with opinions of his own.

The initial question is asking Karl about crime on the street and then it rambles off into a conversation from Karl's childhood. This informal comedic style of interview I find very interesting and funny because it's formal, informal and the personality of the Karl shines through more.

Karl's views are so unique and original and therefor become very funny and interesting for people to listen to and watch. This was initially broadcast on XFM radio.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

task

Evaluation

This task was a rather simple task to complete, due to the fact that Jacob has used digital recorders in the past and has a lot of experience in Audio editing software such as Audacity.

The subject matter we chose for the Vox Pop’s was topical due to the recent bushfires and the people that we interview had very strong opinions. Therefore it was easy to get good answers to our questions, however the background noise due to some locations was an issue.

Other than the computer locking us out of our original edited files we found this task easy to complete.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Vox Pop

Assessment Task 3

Vox Pop

Introduction: The recent bushfire tragedy has hit a lot of us Victorian’s hard. A lot of people have lost there homes, friends, family and their livelihoods. But what makes this tragedy worst is that there have been people that have been going around to houses stealing what they can to survive. Pablo and Jacob set out and asked a few people of what they thought of these looters.

Vp31: (Jacob recording Pablo interviewing)

P: What you thought of those people

V: It’s probably one of the worst things you could do at this time. Probably as bad as guys that lighted the fires. Taking the money even the ones on Centrelink who are trying to claim rebate of Centrelink that’s even worse as well.

P: OK. What do you think their punishment should be?

V: Oh, for stealing obviously exactly what should be done. Whether its private or personal property. They should be taken to court for exactly what their doing.

P: Do you think there would be any excuse to justify their stealing?

V: No, nothing. Why would there be a reason to justify their stealing. I wouldn’t know.

Vp26: (Pablo recording Jacob interviewing)

J: Wanted to know your opinions on the recent looters from the bushfires.

V: My opinions they are very rude bastards and that’s as vulgar as I get.

J: Do you think there would be any excuse to justify their stealing at all?

V: Listen, everyone is an opportunist given the right opportunity we will all do it, simple.

J: What do you think their punishment should be?

V: Spanking with a bamboo stick by the rest of the population.

Vp24: (Pablo recording Jacob interviewing)

J: Just like to know your opinions of the looters from the bushfires.

V: It’s terrible, people are needy they’ve lost everything and anything they’ve got left and their just stealing it. It’s terrible.

J: Do you think there’d be any reason to justify their stealing?

V: No. Because it’s just not the right thing to do to take from someone that is down. Its awful.

J: What do you think their punishment should be?

V: Big fine, community, clean up or even jail.

Vp07: (Jacob Recording Pablo interviewing)

P: I just wanted to know your opinion on the looters and the stealers from the bushfires

V: I think its pretty rude of ‘em, but we need to send more supplies up

P: And what do you think their punishment should be for stealing from houses that have been burnt out?

V: Jail probably, yep, lock em up

P: Do you think anything would justify their excuse for doing it?

V: Nope, we just need to send more supplies up.

Vp11: (Jacob recording Pablo interviewing)

P: These people that have stolen from the burnt out houses, what do you think of them?

V: They should be Crucified, these people have gone through that much now as it is, my brother is one of them, and if they ever catch them, they should be crucified for doing it.

P: Do you think that any excuse would justify their stealing?

V: 90% of the time it’ll probably be drugs or something, and again, they should be crucified for doin that too, so.

P: What do you think their punishment should be?

V: If it was me, they probably wouldn’t have it here, but I would put them to hard labour, you know, like 4 years hard labour and that’ll teach them not to do it again.

Vp18: (Pablo recording Jacob interviewing)

J: What are you opinions on the looters from the bushfires?

V: I don’t really give them any thought, I’m sorry.

J: What do you think their punishment should be?

V: Well whatever law their breaking they get charged with that and they get the punishment that is assigned to that crime.

J: Do you think there would be any excuse to justify their stealing?

V: Yes I do. You’d have to be in a pretty bad way to be looking around ashes for stuff. Wouldn’t you?

Outro: After hearing from the people from Holmesglen tafe it was more than evident that people have been outraged by the looters and stealers from the bushfires, this has been Jacob and Pablo, reporting from Holmesglen news

Thursday, February 12, 2009

3AW vs 774ABC

While 3AW and 774ABC have both significantly devoted time to the Victorian bushfire disaster throughout the last week since Saturday there are great differences in the styles, format and content between the two Melbourne stations that stream on the AM network.

Studying the websites from both stations there is a clear difference in the setup of their schedules and priorities between the stations. 774ABC website reads:

“Stay tuned to ABC Local Radio for updates and advice on bushfires in your area. The Bushfire Information Line is 1800 240 667. People going to relief centres (or people trying to locate family or friends) should phone the Red Cross State Inquiry Centre on 1800 727 077”

774ABC has significantly changed their programming schedule to aim directly at the statistics and real solutions to Victoria’s worst natural disaster. They are offering specific details to the local communities that have been directly affected and pinpointing what happened on Saturday and what needs to happen to solve the chasm of problems in repairing Victoria.

Although 3AW is focussing on the disaster their approach and content is significantly different from 774. On Friday 13th of February 3AW’s programming consisted of: AFL Legend breaks down, Rex Hunt on being Australian, CFA man's 'terrifying' day and The wedding from hell - Listen to how fast Saturday's blaze set upon this wedding. These are targeted stories and segments of personal stories and memoirs from the tragedy,

Both stations have admirably devoted their time and resources into covering the bushfires substitutionally. However 3AW has focused in particular on personal memories, personal stories and opinion pieces whereas 774 has in general focused more specifically on statistics and measures needed to formulate in order to overcome the tragedy.