My radio extract uses many conventions that exist in real radio. Firstly, my radio station is a Sports-based station that was created around the format of talkSPORT radio station, with many similarities and differences. As talkSPORT is the only real station that is similar to my station, I took it upon myself to regularly listen to talkSPORT, not just the shows, but the adverts and jingles also, to see how a sports station is meant to be presented, and whether it was similar to the idea I had for my station. This helped me greatly because it helped me differentiate the difference between talkSPORT and stations such as LBC, which is similar, not in context, but in the strengths of the station, for example, talkSPORT and LBC both rely on debates and conversations, and people calling in to give their opinion, rather than music.
Listening to talkSPORT also helped me realise that every detail is heavily planned. Prior to doing this research, I took no interest in the adverts and jingles that radio stations used. I was only interested in the content of the station's shows, for example, what Adrian Durham had to say in the 'Daily Arsenal'. However, I realised that the adverts used by the station are strategically used because they are adverts designed for the stations target audience. I noticed a theme in the amount of betting adverts, and Lucozade adverts that appeared on talkSPORT, and realised that that you never hear these adverts on any other stations. I even listened to Capital FM, Absolute, and magic, and found that the only advertising they do, excluding their own shows, are of mainly artists who have a concert in the nearby future. Therefore, this made me realise that, in order to make my radio extract authentic, every area of the show needed heavy planning and thought going into it.
Listening to talkSPORT also made me differentiate the language and behaviour used in their shows in comparison to any other radio station. The conversations are very informal, and the presenters are almost always men, which perhaps explains the typical 'laddish' banter that goes on between the presenters and the audience. Also, the majority of callers into the show are men, with a lot of them calling up to express their feeling on a topic of their choice, or of a topic that is already being discussed on the show. These people often also speak in a very informal way, and can often lead to a heated debate among the panel that more likely resembles The Jeremy Kyle Show than Question Time. This helped me realise that, even though I didn't have a caller on my radio extract, I knew that in order to seem authentic, I needed my presenters on my show to sound informal and as if they were having a normal conversation. This effected how I made my characters speak and made me alter my script so as to have the show scripted but make it sound otherwise.
What I also realised whilst listening to talkSPORT was that the context of the news bulletins are different to many other radio stations. On talkSPORT they have a news bulletin, and a sports update. The difference between the two of them is simply that the sports update is centred completely around Sport, whilst the news bulletin is more general. This is not to mean that the news bulletin cannot contain sport at all, it just means that it can contain anything deemed important enough for the station, and for the audience. This affected how I wanted to present my news bulletin. I decided against copying talkSPORT's idea of a sports update. I did this because I didn't like the idea of the news and sports being separate and different. I believe that if something is news worthy, then it deserves to be on the news, no matter what it is. With this in mind, I made sure that my news stories were as news-worthy as possible. Therefore, each news story that is related to sport in my news bulletin is a story that would make the news even if it didn't relate to sport. I did this so as to make my news stories attractable to not just the sports-loving audience, but to the news-loving audience as well. With all of this in mind, I hoped that this would make my radio station seem as authentic as possible.
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