Voice recording session Monday 21st October 2013

Yesterday, different to the usual weekly chapel session, I was given a very different task to do. I was told to take part in recording a voice introduction.
I was recording someone introducing a puppet theatre company at a festival. The voice clip was very short, so the recording procedure itself wasn't very complicated or long.
As for the technical aspect, the setting up required more time and I did experienced technical problems.
First, I had to set up a mike stand, together with a condenser microphone. I also had to use something called a pop shield, which when someone says something like "pop" the shield will prevent from the sound of the words being heard too loud through the speakers and in the recording.
Then, it was the time to test the communication between the control room and the recording studio, I was given a set of headphones, when someone was talking to me from the control room, I was told to check the quality of the sound in the headphones.  I did experience problems hearing what was spoken from the control room, so I decided to try another headset, however, this didn't work, and I had to try further 2 headsets. After trying all headphones that I had available, and none of them had a full sound quality, I was forsed to go with the flo and use one of the headsets despite the distortion in the sound coming from the control room.
However, the recording went without any problems at all, after the levels were set, the recording started, it all went fine, and the person who was being recorded was satisfied with the recording.

Exploring A Radio Station Friday 18th October 2013

In my least media session, we started to put together our first assessed project, our presentation of a radio station profile. The task is to:
Select a radio station
Research it
Find background information
Look at it's programmes in detail, including genre.
Research it's production procedures
Research the audience profile + listening figures.
The station I chose to research is BBC Radio 1, here are some interesting historical facts I've managed to find out about the station:

BBC Radio 1 was established in 1967 together with BBC Radio 2.

The station was established as a successer to the BBC Light Programme, which had broadcast popular music and entertainment shows since 1945.

Radio 1 was launched at 7am on Saturday 30^th September 1967.

The first DJ to broadcast on Radio 1 was Tony Blackburn, who’s cheery style was first heard on Radio Caroline and Radio London.

His style won him the prime slot on what became known as The Radio 1 Breakfast Show, however, it’s original title was Disc Delivery,  but Blackburn himself refered to it as “The Tony Blackburn Show”

The first words on radio 1 were: “… and, good morning everyone. Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1”

The first complete record played on Radio 1 was “Flowers In The Rain” by The Move.

This project is spread across a fiew weeks, with the final presentation taking place on the 8th of November, this video presentation will be also uploaded on this blog, together with all the interesting information I manage to find.

Chapel Session for Monday 14th October 2013

Yesterday I had another great chapel session with the media team. It was really interesting, the artists we had performing this time were completely different compared to Richard Watson, who performed in the chapel couple of weeks ago.
The Selurians was the band that we were recording in the chapel this time. This bad was a rock band, so it did involved a lot more microphones and instruments being set up. At the start, we were listening to the band practising, then it came to recording the session.
 The session however wasn't as easy to record as the team expected. Despite the band sounding confident about their material, when it came to the session, the band was very disorganised.  At many times, they stopped in the middle of recording, mostly due to the timing being wrong.
The first song, due to the lack of organisation, needed 9 takes.
The second song was much better, there were only 4 takes after the band was satisfied, however, lack of organisation was also there.
But over all, the band's songs were really good. If not the organisation problems, this would've been a perfect chapel session.
But the band was great, and I would love to have another session with them.

Lesson summary for Friday 11th October

Today in the lesson, we were split into groups, and were told to research a radio programme of our choice.
My group decided to research The Radio 1 Breakfast Show.
My task was to research and put together the profile for the current radio 1 Breakfast Show presenter, Nick Grimshaw. Here's what I found:

Nick Grimshaw radio profile

 

Nick Grimshaw’s first time in radio, was in BBC Radio 1.

He joined radio 1 in September 2007.

He presented Switch with his friend and fello DJ, Annie Mac.

From August 2008 to May 2009 Nick Grimshaw hosted the weekend breakfast show.

On the 1^st of June 2009, Nick Grimshaw started his 10 till midnight slot. Following the departure of Colin Murray.

Call Or Delete, one of the features of Nick’s 10 till Midnight show, was then taken forward to the Breakfast show.

From 2010-2012 Nick Grimshaw was the main stand-in presenter for Scott Mills, now he’s been replaced by Huw Stephens.

On the 11^th July 2012, it was announced that Nick Grimshaw is to take over from Chris Moyles to present the radio 1 breakfast show.

Nick Grimshaw’s first ever breakfast show was on the 24^th Of September 2012.

In November 2012 Nick was criticised by Magic Radio presenter Neil Fox for comments he made about Radio 1's decision to omit Robbie Williams’s  Candy from it’s A List playlist, due to that Robbie was apparently too old for the station’s target audience.

Not long after that, Nick Grimshaw was once again in the papers, as it was claimed that he refused to promote Rihanna’s Unappologetic album due to that she canceled an interview with him. This claim Nick Grimshaw later denied, noting that his snub was intended to be "tongue in cheek".

The group also looked at the show structure, listening figures and the target audience.

 

 

Media Institution Case Study

Media Institution case study

 

My media institution: BBC Radio

 

Description

BBC radio services started in 1922.

They were licensed by the government’s general post office.

 

 

Who owns it

The BBC is owned by the public who pay for BBC’s products and services.

 

List the products that the institution produces

BBC Radio produces many products.

Podcasts: free downloads of certain shows available online.

iPlayer catch up service: Allowing people to catch up on BBC TV and Radio programmes for 7 days after the programme was originally shown on TV or radio.

BBC radio also offers a wide range of Local radio stations.

BBC also offers a world wide news station, BBC World Service.

However, the main product that BBC Radio offers, are hundreds of radio programmes. BBC has programmes from all different genres, including, music, drama, entertainment , comedy, sport and much, much more. The programmes are spread across many BBC stations, concentrating on age. For example, radio 1 is famous for it’s  new music shows, including the Zane Lowe show, featuring upcoming future hits, and interviews with big names. Including Jay-Z, Kanye West and Eminem.

BBC’s radio stations include:

BBC Radio 1

BBC 1Xtra

BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4Xtra

BBC 5 Live

BBC 5 Live Sports Xtra

BBC 6 Music

BBC Asian Network

BBC World Service.

BBC also offer a wide range of local radio, including:

BBC Scotland

BBC Three Counties

BBC Oxford

BBC Barkshire

 

 

 

Usefull links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

List competitors of the institution

Competitors of BBC radio are other radio stations, mostly commercial radio stations, and commercial local radio stations.

BBC radio’s competitors are also stations from all over the world.