Radio

I was responsible for creating the stings for our bulletins, and felt that my song choices were appropriate for the target audience, as well as merging nicely with the tone and pace of the bulletin itself. I chose “High Rise” by Ladytron for the intro (a high-energy, dance track that encompassed the urgency and serious tone of the news) and football crowd noise for the sports news.

Half an hour before each bulletin, my colleagues and I went into the studio to run through the script and make any last-minute adjustments – either because of inaccuracies or because the bulletin needed to be shortened/lengthened in order to reach the allotted time. We decided to do this after feeling quite disorganised during the mock bulletins on the first radio news day – changes had to be made to the script and we didn’t allocate sufficient time to make them.

I feel the bulletins were successful, largely because the entire news team retained an awareness of the target audience at all times. “Buzz FM” is aimed at an older (45+) audience across Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, therefore we ensured that local stories largely took priority over national stories and entertainment news was kept to a minimum (although it did feature as a “lighter note” in the afternoon bulletin, which had a more “relaxed” vibe than the 1pm bulletin). Clips were mostly original audio, from either vox pops around Bournemouth town or the university, or from interviews with people relevant to the stories. Both bulletins went out on time, although we were unable to rehearse for the 3pm one due to a slight lapse in organisation (perhaps due to complacency brought on by the success of the first bulletin). However, I feel that our editor Amber was successful in keeping an eye over the progress of the news team, assigning roles and ensuring that everything took place on schedule. As presenter, I feel that I fulfilled my role to a good standard. My delivery was clear (aside from a few small errors) and generally paced suitably (slow enough to appeal to our older audience).