Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Hamish Andy vs Roy and HG

The two stations FOXfm and TripleM have to major drive programs that are popular, but have different target audiences. I listened to The life - podcast 54 with Roy and HG. After that, i listened to the 8th of May podcast with Hamish and Andy. Both programs have a big expectation to meet up with every show they make, because they have to be contentious and funny.

Starting with Roy and HG, i personally do not find them any where near as entertaining as Hamish and Andy, but that may be because of my demographic and what they have aimed for. It is useful to have a team of 2 people so that they can feed off each other and chemistry can happen when you put the right two together and that's what both stations have done well. Rog and HG use each other to talk maturely about anything. One the episode i listened to, they were talking about called each other different names and the logies, along with some sport discussions. The target they have directed their humour for are definitely the middle-aged to older demographic, as long as they are in a car driving home at that time.

Hamish and Andy, have a strong youth orientated vision for humour and gives the listeners an ability to create an imagination using their "in-the-moment" stories, such as the japanese experience that i was listening to. Their humour would not appeal to the older generation because they are not the same. The type of content that Hamish and Andy unravel on their show is always something that is random, extreme, or parodical. I believe that the material that they use on their shows as their primary supply of content, is pre-recorded by a portable recording device that they use to travel and do the things not possible in a radio station, which is why their stories and experiences are so immersive for the listener.

Hamish and Andy's strength in their show, is that they have already made themselves popular on the television network, which gives the radio listener more incentive to listen to what they offer. Roy and HG, however have their own strengths as well, where they may not be as youth-orientated as HA, but their material is well directed for the listener who just wants to listen to a normal conversation.

Music Shows! PBS and Radio National

From what i had listened to, 'Punk Drunk Love' from PBS and Richard Meale music from Radio National 'the music show', i have come to decide that these are two very opposing styles of music. Although the thing that both stations may have in common, is the appeal to the special interest groups.

This piece that i had listened to from ABC Radio National, had focused highly on the creation and innovation of specific classical styles of music, more particularly string ochestra. Playing segments on-air from the piece, and then describing the elements of the music and elaborating on the composing history. The presenting was very limited, where the main focus of the program was restricted to a music category and therefore had to listen to a lot of, music. But when there were parts where the presenting took place, the voice of Andrew Ford was very mature and deep, it gave the listeners the ability to connect with him through his fluent and pronounciated tone.

On the other hand, the major contrast between the shows of ABC Radio National and PBS was definitely the style of music and the presenting that were carrying the listeners. In PBS, the presenter had a lot of pauses in between his speaking in the microphone, and that personally disconnected me from engaging with what he had to offer. He had also spoken from a very opinionated manner, talking about what music he liked and why they should be touring, etc and that also detached my connection with him. The show had focused very much on the punk/hardcore scene where the music that was being played was obviously not pop cultured.

Both stations had a very serious tone in their voices and had no sense of humour what so ever. I guess that the weakness of having a perticular style of music as a main focus of the radio station, maybe passionate for the person presenting it, but only a select few would choose to listen to it. The positives were definitely the about of knowledge they both knew about their music and were suited for that genre.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Sport - 92.7AM, SEN111.6AM

Both on the topic of Footy, i reviewed both stations and compared the way that they both present their material. The SEN had a radio podcast on the "FFA announcement that they have sanctioned Sebastian Ryall after he was charged with engaging in a sexual act with a thirteen year old girl". And the 92.7radiosport had their footy late mail podcast that i listened to. Both are very different styled presentations but have the same audience to present to.

SEN had a very formal way of presenting their material, which absolutely no jokes or crackers, this was the subject matter of Sebsatian Ryall being charged with a criminal offense. So the station had resonably adapted to the situation and subject to which they were reporting. If the station had done otherwise, then they would get numerous complaints from AFL fanatics, which they successfully avoided by presenting the information the way they did.

Sport Radio had a completely different style, but also a very different subject matter. Having a style of AFL news report, it allowed them to be more personal and being involved by giving their opinions. That was another thing i had noticed, the sports radio stations when doing the AFL report like to engage the audience with their opinions. This is a very successful way to engage an audience type regardless of a particular team they barrack for, it opens a gateway to allow the freedom of expression on live radio which is rare to come by, only on sports analysis. Also, their station had used mild humour, while not drifting away from the topic, they managed to keep their radio culture less formal than SEN. Even though SEN was a report not an analysis like 92.7.

These radio stations really benefit only the listeners who deliberately tune in to listen to the sports reports, any listener who does not care for sport would not have any interest in these stations.

BBC world, NPR - america science, health comparison

I listened to two radio stations, the BBC world service and the NPR american radio station both on the subject of health and science. The NPR was hosted by Christopher Joyce and the subject matter was about the global warming effecting sea levels, which could rise to a maximum of 20 feet, globally. The BBC world news was hosted by Claudia Hammond and was talking about facial recognition, also called the "super-recognizers".

It was interesting to see the way that both stations had presented their material. The NPR had almost all of the interview with the scientist pre-recorded, and over the phone was also pre-recorded. I presume this was because of the correction of errors, and being a factual scientific response, the station might have preferred to keep the response as clean as possible. Whereas, the BBC had a very BBC - styled presentation, where they would have a kind of narrator which would re-direct the subject matter in different directions. I would think that having a style like this, the subject interviews would most likely have been pre-recorded.

Connection with the audience was more on a personal level in NPR than in the BBC. It sounded like NPR was telling its listeners about how the climate change affects everybody, and Chris spoke with a down-to-earth tone, with less formality in his voice. On the other hand, Claudia did a great job presenting the issue professionally and maintaining the involvement of the audience by asking the questions that the audience would want to know the answers to. Where she did not connect as much on a personal level as Chris did, she did a great job still connecting through information and interesting questions to the interview that she was conducting.

The NPR was more personal by far, and when Chris had introduced the guest announcer Rebecca, he immediately threw in a humourous line such as, "She was here for the whole interview before, she just doesn't speak much". And from there started talking about how science was similar to that of spaghetti, how the facts and evidence gathered from discoveries always change as time passes by, similar to the linear formation of spaghetti. BBC was completely formal and maintained their strict formality, where it would have been unnatural to hear any type of humour in its sessions.