RADIO STATION

Siren  is proud to be Lincoln’s first community radio station and has been broadcasting since 11th August 2007. They aim to make radio accessible to all and especially those aged between 9 – 25 in the Lincoln area. It provides a voice for their listeners by improving media literacy and communication skills, and integrating the University into the wider community.  Siren FM is proud to be Lincoln’s first community radio station and has just been named as East Midlands Station of the Year for the second year in a row.

They aim to make radio accessible for everyone in Lincoln and its surrounding villages, and you can listen to Siren on FM, online and on mobile.

“We’re based at the University of Lincoln Brayford campus and we are here to make local radio for you, by you and with you.”

The Managing Director of Siren is Andrew David, who’s worked for the BBC for years and is very passionate about Siren and what it stands for.

You can find Siren on 107.3 MHz.

 

AUDIENCE

Siren FM’s target audience is young adults and children from the ages 9-25 who are based in the Lincoln area. The general interest of the target audience is

Siren offers their audience a “New Sounds” service, where local musicians can get their music heard on Siren FM, here breakthrough artists can share their music for the first time on the radio “no matter what the genre”. Siren offers a lot of opportunities to get young people on air. They  offer work experience and volunteering options to their listeners, which gets the community involved in the radio station.

As well as this the Siren FM also offers a calendar on their website showcasing events in the year that the community and listeners can get involved in.

Lincs FM offers a similar calendar service showing all of the events happening in the area, as well as competitions which listeners can get involved in.

ROLES

For each show our teams will take on different roles, some roles that don’t have as heavy a workload such as Online can often be spread out between the teammates.

Producer

The producer is responsible for programme as a whole and the management and organisation of the team. The producer organises meetings and divides the workload between the team as well as doing the majority of the paperwork. When the programme is live on air the producer has to ensure that the show stays on track, making sure the presenters are comfortable and on time as well as the rest of the team. The most important thing for the producer to do is have a good relationship with the rest of the team, they must be able to manage the team as well as fixing any problems that occur either before the show, or as it is running.

Presenter

The presenter is the voice of the station and the connection between the programme and the listener. They have to engage with guests, as well as co-presenters to make the show interesting and entertaining so that the listeners wants to continue listening to the station. Each presenter has their own style, and so gives a piece of themselves to the listeners. They must be able to take constructive criticism from the producer and keep calm in stressing situations where they may have to fill.

Broadcast Assistant 

The Broadcast Assistant (or BA) is responsible for the technical output for the show. They are required to drive the desk and be able to fix any technical problems that occur before and during broadcast.

Social Media

Those in charge of Social Media will manage the social media websites including Facebook and Twitter. They build hype before the show as well as during the show. As well as this the social media producer will be in charge of taking photos and livestreaming the show via facebook live to engage the audience.

Outside Broadcaster

The outside broadcaster conducts an interview on location with someone that is relevant to the theme of the programme. The Outside Broadcaster must find the interviewee and stay calm during their report.

Content Producer

The content producer focuses on the content of the show, and works with the team to create packages and other types of content for the show.

 

COMPETITION

Some of the main Lincoln based competition for Siren FM is Lincs FM and BBC Radio Lincolnshire. In order for people to stay tuned in, we need to create a program that will be more interesting than what is on at the same time on other stations. The shows that we are creating are on Wednesdays at both 2pm-3pm and 3pm-4pm.

At this time on Lincs FM, Andy Fenton is on air doing the afternoon show, and Ross Carrick is on Compass FM, part of the Lincs FM group, doing the afternoon show. Lincs FM is a commercial music based station which mixes with adverts and sponsored items. Its target audience is middle aged people with families, with a total of 314,000 listeners (Lincs FM 2017).

At 2pm on BBC Radio Lincolnshire we have Chris Berrow, with an entertainment and Arts show, and then at 3pm the Nicola Gilroy Show where there is a mix of local news, travel, weather and sports. We can see that the Chris Berrow show is more for entertainment, and the Nicola Gilroy Show is much more informative other than entertaining. This could imply that it was a good decision to make I-ON Media our first show, as it is more informative and is different from the Chris Berrow show, and vice-versa with SAUCE on Siren, which is more entertaining which makes it different to the Nicola Gilroy Show.

 

As well as this Lincoln City Radio is another competing community radio station. Their target audience is middle aged and elderly people, and they play mainly old chart hits.

TECHNICAL 

This year, instead of dragging and dropping carts to play, we are using the log on Myriad. This is something that we haven’t done before and is new to all of us, but this is what is generally done in the professional industry. The rest of the desk is very similar to what we have used in first year, along with the myriad software that we have also previously used.

Before each show we need to upload all of the audio that we are using in the show and set it up in the log format, this means instead of dragging in carts we just need to press the play button for the next piece of audio to play. This makes it a lot smoother when running the desk, but I still prefer the idea of dragging and dropping carts into place in case we need to make a snap decision.

As Myriad is the UK broadcast radio industries number one playout system, so I can apply the skills I learn at Siren FM to the majority of other radio stations, including commercial and community radio stations (P Squared, 2017).

To conduct the outside broadcast we will be using an Irig. This allows the user to hear the station output as well as a microphone to be used. This works in the same style of a traditional phonecall.

PAPERWORK AND PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT