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Radio Session 6 - Planning part 2 - Your Listeners




You're probably sick of the idea of 'target audience' (I know I am) but in radio there's no denying that it's particularly important.

Why do radio stations care so much about target audience? Well, if they're a BBC station they need to be able to prove they're catering for a part of the UK population that isn't being catered for elsewhere on the BBC network. The BBC has to provide programming for the whole nation or it won't get its license fee. So each BBC station will be keen to establish its own unique audience - the BBC annual reports always contain a firm statement of each station's target audience because having that unique audience is each station's justification for existing. If a BBC station started that basically had the same audience as say, Radio 1, the board of governers would ask why it's getting a bit of the license-fee and probably close it down.


If they're a commercial radio station they need advertisers, and those advertisers will want to know who is listening to the station before they decide on spending money on ads on that station. Stations won't be able to sell ad-space on their networks (the major revenue-source behind commercial stations) without being able to tell potential advertisers exactly who listens to their stations and shows. The more detailed their target-audience profiles the better they can target advertisers and say 'come advertise on us to appeal to these people'.

They'll tailor the content to fit that audience, every single aspect - Contests and free tickets may be featured to grab teenagers' interest, Sponsorship of events/gigs/festivals will also be tailored to appeal to their listeners, everything from the station's name to the DJs they choose to present the shows, to the playlists will be dictated by what audience they're trying to reach.

When it comes to planning your show whether you've said it would be best for a BBC or commercial station, it's essential that a decent profile of your potential audience is in your planning. Do this as follows.

1. Open up a new post. Call it 'RADIO PLANNING - THE AUDIENCE'



2.  Create a basic TARGET AUDIENCE  PROFILE 

This should containas a bare minimum basic statements about the age, gender split, social class (workingCDE/middleABC) and ethnicity of who’ll be listening to you as well as any other thoughts/ideas about WHO will be listening to your show. Will it be a mainstream audience or a niche/alternative audience? A global audience, a nationwide audience or a local audience? 

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3. Tell me exactly how and why your show will appeal to that audience

For most of you the age-range of your audience will be young, and the gender/ethnicity will be mixed although certain musical genres do have fanbases that sometimes predominately feature black/white/asian listeners.  How does the concept behind your show and the station  you’ve chosen appeal to/reach that audience? What kind of attitude will your listeners have towards DJs and the radio? What do they want out of radio that your show will provide?


4. INCREASE THE DETAIL TO GET A MERIT

Can you tell me their OTHER INTERESTS  & MEDIA CHOICES  - this would be really important for anyone planning a radio show. Knowing what OTHER media potential listeners are into will inform how you might promote the show. What (other) radio stations  will they listen to, what TV channels will they mainly watch, what mags/newspapers might they buy, what websites will they regularly visit. what kind of streaming sites and social media will they use? How could you use all this information to PROMOTE your show? Does the station you've suggested would carry your show host podcasts of previous shows on their site or on soundcloud? Is that something you might want to do with your show too?

WHAT YOU SHOULD END UP WITH 

A post that gives me a basic audience profile including their age, gender and class (pass). The post might also include how your show will appeal to that audience as well as giving extra detail about the lifestyle of your listeners and how that might influence your promotional strategy.


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