My Radio Writing

After writing for our radio bulletin here are the 10 rules I feel will make the script successful:

1. Write as if you are talking to a friend. (contractions)
2. Simple sentences. (one idea, one sentence)
3. Two or three sentences for a cue; four for a copy. (8 for a voicer)
4. Write numbers as words e.g 2010 = Two Thousand and Ten. This makes it clearer for the news reader to read.
5. Ella rose, 17, from Newport --> Doesn't make sense. Would need to put --> Seventeen-Year-Old, Ella Rose from Newport.
6. Cue-In Line- Vary it! Introduces clip of another voice. Paraphrase the first line of audio.
7. Write names phonetically e.g Sarah Leahy = Sare-Rah Lee-Hee.
8. Round up statistics and put them in context e.g 260,00 hectares = the size of three football pitches. (it is easier to understand)
9. Don't use the word today!
10. Read it aloud to ensure it reads correctly.

Before writing the radio scripts here are some practices my group did on some newspaper articles:

This is the original news paper article and here is my first attempt:

On his eleventh birthday Jack Sheaf received a present of his own published book entitled Amazing Uncle Ben. Inspired by his primary school teacher Kieren Larwood, who received a signed copy. Jack also sent copies to Prince Harry and David Walliams.

After editing however and discussing with the rest of the class, everyone made suggestions and the final outcome was this:

An eleven-year-old from Wroxall received a birthday present of his very own published book entitled "My Amazing Uncle Ben". Jack Sheaf was inspired by his primary teacher Kieren Larwood who was given a signed copy. Jack also sent copies to Prince Harry and David Wallaims.

This is a lot better as the beginning is a lot more catchy and the audience know straight away why they should keep listening.

Script for Football Story - Copy

This is the second sports story we are featuring.

First version:

Two Island football clubs are fined and disqualified from cup competitions. Ventnor and Cowes teams have been removed form competitions due to the fielding of ineligible players. After both teams succeeded astonishing wins they are no longer allowed to compete; whilst the teams they had beaten get reinstated.


After editing it I decided that the word "Ineligible" was to hard for the presenter to say fluently and due to the target audience being teenagers decided to make it sound less formal and more like a conversation.


After edits:

Two Island league football clubs have been fined and disqualified from junior cup competitions. Ventnor and Cowes junior teams have been removed form all remaining matches because they fielded  players already playing for higher division teams. After both teams succeeded astonishing wins they are no longer allowed to compete; whilst the teams they had beaten get reinstated.

Script for Rugby Story - Cue and Clip

My group have decided to feature 3 sports stories; Rugby, Football and Swimming are the main sports with competitions around the island.

Here is my first version before editing:

Christ the King College celebrates an astonishing win of Twenty Seven to Five with their under thirteen's rugby team. Their first game of the season and playing an away game. The teams coach Kieran Leahy said he was proud of the boys. So we congratulate Nelson, Hollis, Bushnell, Williams, Sanderson, Davis, Dyer, Puckett, Early, Ward, Buckley, Lee, Smith, Cole, Turner and Wood from the Christ the King team.


And after editing:

Cue: Christ the King College are celebrating an astonishing win of Twenty Seven to Five with their under thirteen's rugby team. It was their first game of the season and playing an away game. The teams coach Keiran Leahy said he was proud of the boys.

Clip: The boys played exceptionally. After all their hard work in training they managed to secure the result they wanted. I am so proud to be their coach and have them represent the school.

Edits that were made and why:

I got rid of the boys names at the end because it was unnecessary and enabled us to create the story into a cue and clip having Kieran Leahy talk about the boys instead. This will make it sound more interesting for the listener.

Script For Ice Rink Story - Copy

My group split our roles up and each took a local story to research about and come up with the cue or copy script. 

After editing my original note, it was this:

Mp Andrew Turner is backing the campaign to save the island's ice rink. Ryde based Planet Ice has reached the end of its fifteen year lease. The rink is due to close on March the twenty fifth with the loss of forty jobs. However local residents are planning a campaign to save the rink.

This is a lot better as it is less wordy for the audience to hear and has a more catchy opening sentence.

Structure of News Bulletin

• Jingle
• Introduction of Presenter
• Headlines (BED)- Interview Film/Sony Hacking, Benedict Cumberbatch's Wedding

Stories-

• The Interview Film /Sony Hacking = Cue + Clip

Sting...

• Isle of Wight Festival = Cue + Voxpop
• Ice Rink Closure = Copy
• Cumberbatch's Wedding = Cue + Clip

Sting...

• Sport stories (BED)
• Local Football Story = Copy
• Local Rugby Story = Cue + Clip
• Local Swimming Story - Outside Specialist Reporter Broadcast at Pool = Cue + Wrap

Sting ...

• Weather - Today and Tonight's Forecast
• Outro of Presenter
• Jingle

Analysis:

We chose this as our running order and included these stories due to the questionnaire results from earlier. Many enjoyed international stories; however because our task was for a local radio we only chose one story and it was the Sony Hacking/ Interview film as we thought this could still affect our viewers due to potential cinema changes. As well as this we chose 3 local stories, as our viewers enjoyed celebrity gossip we mentioned Benedict Cumberbatch's wedding taking place on the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight Festival interests our target audiences age group and the Ice Rink is also more targeted at a younger age; however also including slight political aspects. We then decided to include 3 local sports stories as our audience enjoyed sports and achievement as well as scandals. The 3 most popular Island sports are Football, Rugby and Swimming for our audiences age group. Therefore we varied the positivity and negativity of the stories so that they stayed interested throughout the news bulletin. Final the majority said they wanted weather and so put that in last so that they had something to look forward to, making it more of an informal report and keeping the audiences hopes up.

Questionnaire Sample

Analysis of Results

I can interpret our results to help create a news bulletin that our target audience would be interested in hearing. The questionnaire was only given to teens between the ages of 15 and 17 as this is who we are aiming at.

The first graph is fairly simple and just stating the number of males and females that were asked.

The second graph shows that our sample of teenagers asked do listen to radio regularly if not everyday and only a few people never listen to radio. This is good as we don't really need to change the format of how radio is presenter because it interests the majority.

The third graph highlights the most popular radio stations for our target audience. Capital and Radio1 are top two therefore we will try and make our news bulletin similar layout to these two stations as well as placing in some originality.

The fourth graph states that the type of music listened to by this audience is predominantly Pop and Rock which still fits in with the two radio stations mentioned above.

In the fifth graph besides the fact that our audience listens to radio because of the music, in terms of a news bulletin we can see that they enjoy radio for news and interviews; therefore we should try and include these features.

We should include Local news, some Worldwide events that are relevant  to our target audience, Interviews/ Celebrity gossip and Weather. This is because in the sixth graph the majority of our target audience prefers to listen to news on the radio for these features.

Finally the seventh and eighth graph show that our target audience don't mind what gender the presenter is, however even though the majority again said the didn't mind the age of the presenter, a good proportion would like them to be similar to there age. Therefore we will try and find a presenter more around the target audiences age so they can relate to them and enjoy the bulletin more due to the informal language used by the presenter.

Results from Questionaire