New idea for central character

Up until now I have been thinking along the lines of the central character being a politician (e.g. Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary). I have just had a fresh idea: the central character being an advisor to a politician who becomes embroiled in a scandal. Focusing on the advisors and civil servers is not new or innovative - 'Yes, minister' is just one previous example of a drama to do this - but it remains an option.

Video Diary 3

Institutions: Radio stations and production companies

A key part of the media as an industry are institutions. An institution is "an organization, establishment, foundation, society, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program, especially one of a public, educational, or charitable character".

In this case, the institution is the radio station that broadcasts or produces a radio play. Some radio plays are produced 'in-house' by the radio station themselves or by a production company.

Radio stations

There are only two stations in the UK that broadcast radio plays regularly: BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4 Extra.

BBC Radio 4 first started broadcasting on 30th September 1967 and has 10.85 million weekly listeners. Radio 4 is largely a speech station, broadcasting news, current affairs and drama. It is most famous for The Archers.

BBC Radio 4 Extra, formally known as BBC Radio 7, is a spin-off station from BBC Radio 4 and broadcasts 'classic' radio dramas as well as new ones.

The role of radio stations is important. Most people tune into a radio station not knowing what to expect (the opposite of Television where people decide what they would like to watch from a schedule) and this represents its own challenges for radio drama because it is quite a 'niche' type of programme.

Audiences will also know what to expect from particular radio stations.

Production companies

Production companies often produce radio dramas and documentaries for radio stations. They may also produce jingles and manage talent as well. A radio station will put a programme out for tender with a budget, a production company will produce an idea, work out their costs and put in a bid, and the production company with the best bid will win the contract from the radio station.

One such production company is Wise Buddah, started by Mark Goodier in 1997. They have produced Weekend Wogan for BBC Radio 2, Nemone for BBC 6 Music and many documentaries. Another production company is USP Content who produce BBC Radio 5 Live's Formula 1 coverage.

The role of the production companies is an interesting one. They can help save costs and time for radio stations because otherwise radio stations have to find all the actors themselves. Production companies also bring new ideas and other ways of doing things into a programme.

Audience research: paper-based survey

I will be carrying out a paper-based survey to go along side the online survey to increase the number of responses. The questions will be the same to ensure the results are not biased.

Here's the survey sheet:

Early ideas mindmap

Please click on the image to enlarge the mindmap.

It goes without saying really that these ideas are still in their very early form; for example the story lines need a lot of developing (I will refer back to my earlier work on story arcs to aid this process). However, it is a start and I am confident that political satire, done properly, is the correct route to go.

Radio Terminology

Here is my mini-glossary for radio dramas.

Act - A section of a radio drama.

Actuality - A sound effect or piece of speech recorded in the field.

Ambiance - A background sound to indicate the setting.

Antagonist - A character who exists to oppose the protagonist (i.e. the bad guy).

Bed - A piece of music or sound behind the action in the sound mix.

Decibels (DB) - Unit for measuring the volume of sounds.

Dialogue - The words that actors speak.

Closet drama - A drama that is read rather than performed.

Echo - Often used to create the feeling of being outdoors or to give the dialouge an ethereal feel.

EQ - Adjusting the pitch of a recorded sound.

Fade in & Fade out - Gradual increase or decrease in the volume of the sound.

Flashback - Showing event(s) from the past.

Gain - Loudness.

Metaphor - Comparing things that are not alike.

Mix - The sounds, music and speech mixed together in a radio drama.

Narrative - Story or tale.

Pan - Moving the sound of a track to make it sound like it is coming from either the left or the right.

Plot point  - A piece of information that the audience has to understand before they understand why action is happening.

Post-production - The mixing and editing that takes place after the recording of a radio play.

Segue - A smooth transition froom one element to another without a pause.

SFX - Sound Effects.

Sting - A sharp musical chord to add punctuation.

Voiceover - Usually used as narration in radio dramas, if at all.

Video Diary 2

Apologies for the lip-syncing being out of sync! I'm afraid I wasn't able to fix it.

Idea

I have already decided that the genre of the radio drama I will be producing will be political satire/parody.

My original idea was a storyline based around the character of a politician who thinks he is part of an international conspiracy.

Another new idea I have had is a story about a politician who tries to appear as if they are 'normal' with disastrous affect!

Audience research: Comments from social media

I have asked for some comments on Twitter about peoples' opinions relating to radio drama.

Here is my original tweet:

Doing some research for an A-level project. What do you expect from a political satire on the radio?
— Laurence Scott (@radiolaurence) October 18, 2012

Here are the responses:

@radiolaurence Depends what you mean- Something gentle like the Now Show or Chris Morris' original radio show (before the Day Today)?
— Robert Turner (@ReynardCity) October 18, 2012

@radiolaurence I'd expect political satire to be mildly amusing... X
— Andrew Davis (@AndyTheClown) October 18, 2012

@radiolaurence I think that it could take almost any form. Doesn't have to be funny. Doesn't have to be topical (as history repeats itself)
— Joe Baker (@evil_chutney) October 18, 2012

Take my radio drama survey...

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Audience reasearch

Next, I shall be moving onto the audience research phase of my research and development. This is essential fore the success of my finished radio play. Here's what I hope to achieve:

• A profile of the type of people who listen to radio dramas
• Find out who the target audience will be for my radio drama

I am going to use three methods: a survey on Survey Monkey, a focus group and comments from social media.

UPDATE 1: I found this article on how to put together a good survey very useful.

UPDATE 2: The focus group will be Qualitative research because it will be to gain reasons and motivations for listening to radio drama as well as ideas. The survey is more Quantitative (although it does include some Qualitative questions) because it is looking for demographic information.

Representation in radio dramas

What makes a good radio drama?

After my textual analysis of several existing radio dramas, I have been thinking about the ingredients of a successful radio drama. There is, of course, no magic formula (I wish there was!) but here are my thoughts, which are entirely subjective.

First, a radio drama must be just that: a drama. This may seem an obvious thing to point out but unless it has twists and turns, emotion, ups and downs, it won't effect the audience in a memorable way.

Secondly, it has to be targeted at the right audience. Therefore one of the next things I will be doing is my audience research. Because radio is such a personal medium, you have to know your audience before you can speak to them in a way that resonates with their lives. The station that broadcasts a radio play is also important to reach the correct audience.

Thirdly, it must be simple. Simple does not have to mean boring - just easy to follow.

Fourthly, it must reflect real life. That doesn't mean that terrible things can't or won't happen! The main area the drama must reflect real life is in the dialogue. The dialogue has to be how that type of character would speak in real life. One of the things I realised listening to other dramas is that the listener can join the dialogue part way through the action.

The future of radio dramas

Do radio dramas have a future?

Some have doubted as to whether radio itself has a future, yet these worries have been mainly refuted due to radio’s willingness to adapt or even embrace new technologies – the internet and DAB are two examples.

Radio dramas, on the other hand, I believe do have some future, although of course they will never as popular as they were in their hay day. The biggest test for radio dramas is to find new audiences with a new tech-savvy generation. If they can do that – and that is a big if – I can see radio plays surviving.

Whilst traditional radio plays, broadcast on the radio, are declining in popularity, audiobooks still remain popular. Podcasting also offers an alternative mode of distributing audio dramas which have the advantages of you being able to listen to anytime and a worldwide audience.

One of the problems facing radio dramas is the concentration required to listen to them - radio is a “background” medium. I found this particularly a problem when analysing existing radio plays for this project.

Timeline of radio broadcasting

The history of radio on Dipity.

Media Key Concept

Representation (conventional, stereotypical v challenging, alternative) - links very closely with the target audience, their expectations and pleasures.

1. Laurence, do some analysis of the representation of characters in 2 radio dramas.

Media Language - technical codes e.g. sound, sound effects, editing, etc.

Audiences - audience segmentation, audience profiling, audience research, uses and gratifications (meaning why we consume what we do, what please it gives us - entertainment and education?)

2. Start constructing some audience research e.g. questionnaires, surveys, interviews with your target audience.

Institutions - e.g. BBC Radio 4? Time slot?

The history of radio dramas

Textual analysis: 15 Minute Drama, HighLites: Retouched, Episode 1

This is my analysis of Episode 1 of HighLites: Retouched, part of BBC Radio 4's 15 minute drama series. It was broadcast on 8th October 2012.