· The
programme I am analysing is Big John at Breakfast which is a local radio
programme from Hallam FM. Hallam FM is a commercial radio station broadcasting
for South Yorkshire. Hallam FM is owned by Bauer Media who are a cross media
conglomerate and own other stations for example Absolute Radio, Kiss, Magic and
many other radio stations.
The
main purpose of this programme is to entertain the audience, those who are
driving to work or driving their kids to school and having upbeat presenters to
get the listeners to have an early morning feeling as it’s played at 6am til
10am playing "All the biggest hits- all day long". Another example of
how it entertains the audience is having celebrity gossip/news for example in
the break Johns talking about Danny Boyle this entertains the audience as they
could be interested in news which isn’t just local. However, Big John at
breakfast could also be informative to the audience as they talk about local
news for example what the weather is going to be like in the next few days and
news from the council for example having free school meals stopped, these
create discussions for the listeners and have them ring in to have their say.
The
typical Hallam FM listener has an C2DE profile at 63%, evidence of this is
shown throughout the programs ad breaks, adverts like Aldi play in the break
talking about how cheap the food is, this connotes the income of the listeners
because they can relate to the adverts on what they can afford, if the
programme would be a ABC1 it would differ as the adverts would be Waitrose for
example as they can easily afford that expense. Another example of the spending
power can be seen through competitions like winning £10,000 in time for Easter
this would drastically change someone’s life of a C2DE profile compared to an
ABC1 who would have a disposable income a lot higher than a C2DE.
Big
John at breakfast is scheduled at 6am-10am the purpose of this is for
entertaining their audiences on their way to work or the school run, this is
justified through ads such as traffic updates preparing their audience to any
traffic news which might make them take a different route to work or college
etc. There’s also hourly updates on the weather throughout the day this
connotes that it is played at breakfast time as they are warning us about
adverse weather conditions what could affect what audiences are doing later on
in the day for example talking about the beast from the East as it will be
getting colder later on. Advertisements such as promoting the McDonalds
breakfast wrap this is connoting that it is early hours of the morning to the
audience and the advertisements stop when the McDonalds breakfast is finished.
The
content of Big John at breakfast fits the purpose of entertaining the audience
through the music, for example having a mix of different genres of songs played
throughout 4 hours, this is to suit the wide range of listeners at that time to
suit the parents and younger audiences who are in the car with their parents on
the school run. The songs played also are quite lively to get the audience in a
good mood for their day ahead, this is generally the top charts what are played
at this time and popular throwback songs. The weather and news is used to
inform the audience on current local events and updates throughout the program
so the target audience of C2DE know what their da ahead will be like.
Competitions are shown throughout the program to entertain the audience and
makes them stay tuned in to hear about what the prize is and hopefully have a
chance to win, an example of this is winning 10k and winning tickets to a
Spring family fun day which is based on the demographics of their target
audience to suite their lifestyle.
The
presenters of Big John at breakfast is John himself, who has been presenting
the breakfast show since 2000, his becomes successful for Hallam’s listenership
aa they get regulars who are used to listening to Big John at breakfast, who
have grown up listening. Big John at breakfast is successful at producing a
breakfast show as he is chatty and funny where listening to the show it will
get the audience in a good morning mood. The audience interact with Big John via
social media tweets on his twitter account ‘BigJohnHallamFM’ as he gets
listeners tweeting in to him and some which are tweeted directly to the radio
station. The producer James has been
involved in radio for over 10 years which contributes to the success in making
Big John at breakfast successful. Due to Hallam FM success you can download the
app to live stream Big John at Breakfast if you don’t
