3. Second Assessment

For our second assessment, we were required to work for “Talbot FM”, which targeted a much younger audience (16yrs – 30yrs) and was only broadcast in Dorset. After the success of the first week, we retained the same roles, with Lauren taking on the task of producing the pre-recorded Entertainment news that was required for our bulletins.

Again, I was responsible for producing the stings. I chose “Destroy Everything You Touch” by Ladytron for the intro and outro, as I felt that its energetic dance beat was appropriate for the younger audience. For entertainment, we were required to create a bed that ran throughout the entire section. I used “Eple” by Royksopp, which I believed to be minimal and “chilled out” enough to avoid being a distraction to the news itself. I made sure that it dipped sufficiently in volume once Lauren started talking, so as not to drown her out, as well as using fades at the beginning and end to give it a smooth, professional sound.

We ensured that our stories were relevant to our audience, and covered topics such as university tuition fees and sexual health, as well as avoiding the more complex political stories and lexis, in order to demonstrate an understanding and empathy with the younger listener. Light-hearted, trivial stories were included to ensure that the bulletin was balanced in mood. As with the first assessment, we retrieved our own interviews and vox pops. For example, one of our general reporters was sent out to Boscombe surf reef to obtain the views of surfers themselves. This would help demonstrate to our audience that the station was committed to, and concerned with, the opinions of the local people and its listeners.

The writing style and story content was more informal and chatty than South Coast Radio. We included rhetorical questions that addressed the listener directly (“Are you feeling grumpy today?”), and subtle alliteration (“The most talked about twins are back”), as a way of engaging and relating to younger listeners. A perfect example of our “tapping in” to the target audience was the inclusion of an interview byte from former X-Factor singer Chico, who had no relevance to the story but would arouse listener interest with his “celebrity” status.

Unfortunately, a couple of production issues arose shortly before the first bulletin was due on air, which meant that we were unable to rehearse. As a result, I was nervous and unfamiliar with the script and did little to inject the vibrancy and energy into my presentation required to stimulate a younger audience. Thankfully, everything ran smoothly for the second bulletin – I had time to rehearse, and was able to concentrate on making my execution more lively and interesting.