Radio is part of the Media industry; it is made up of three broad categories: public funded radio, commercial radio and the community and voluntary radio sector. The radio industry has been successful and now employs over 22,000 people in recent years. Radio is a highly skilled and well qualified workforce; almost two thirds of the employees are graduates. The majority of the workforce is based in London, and is spread throughout the UK, South East, North west regions of England and in Scotland. The major development in the Media industry is that there are more radio stations than before, we have all types of radio stations now. Moreover, the equipments used in the radio industry has improved over the years.
However, there are two types of radio stations in the radio industry; commercial and private. Commercial radio stations are legal and have restrictions; they are often restricted by OFCOM who tell them what are and aren’t allowed to be played, e.g., songs with swear words, interviews with foul language are not to be played on these stations. Examples of commercial radio stations are Capital FM and Kiss 100. Commercial radio stations are usually heard by people of all ages, this includes teenagers and children; it is an advantage to have commercial stations which are legal and have restrictions, because it prevents people from hearing things they would not want to hear. Commercial radio stations are protected by Ofcom, which is the UK Independent regulator and is in charge of making sure the adverts/music played on the radio stations are safe enough to be played.
However, although pirate stations are illegal and promote songs with bad language, it also has an advantage because it promotes those who are not real singers; for example, South London Boys may want to promote a song to everyone, however, they are not real singers, therefore, their song will not be promoted. However, with pirate stations anyone’s songs will be heard. Therefore, pirate stations give people the opportunity to become famous without being in the media industry.
Commercial vs. Public Services:
In the Media industry, there is commercial and public broadcasting. The public service has the people’s interest at heart; it is informative and responsive to people’s needs because they respond to what the people ask; this means we request/ask what we want to know, e.g. questions regarding the elections/fashion/lifestyle/love etc. The public service is also available for everybody and is entertaining. Moreover, it does not import its programmes from foreign resources but is culturally in tune with its audience, producing most of the output itself. Besides, public services cannot look into doing deals with third parties to make extra revenues because that would not make them public. However, there are disadvantages too: It is expensive to run, it is difficult in paying for affording 24 hour, seven days a week output for every bodies needs, and it is difficult for the radio managers to make judgements about what can be provided at an acceptable price. Furthermore, Public services are funded by us, who pay a license fee.
Funds/Fees:
Public radio stations are funded through the license fee which people in the UK pay; the license fee is typically protected by law and set by the government, and is required for any household which contains equipment which can be used to receive a TV signal. In contrast, Commercial radio stations are funded through advertising and Sponsorship. Advertising companies pay them to play their advert; these could be any product or service. However, this means that news broadcasts may not be entirely objective and opens the opportunity to be subjective in the types of news stories, the order of news stories and how much time is given to them.
