Financial considerations

Radio advertising is charged at a rate of approximately £2 per thousand listeners at one time, 'for example if a show has 100,000 listeners at 10am buying at 30 second spot will cost £200, at that time. The late show's 100,000 listeners at 11pm would cost £20.' Therefore the more popular the show the more expensive it will be, it costs more because it will reach a larger amount of listeners. The radio station will work this out with you and let you know how much it will cost in total. 

For example: 
http://futureradio.co.uk/advertise

'Prices start at just £4 per ad and we can usually write and produce your commercial for you within just one week. AND we’ll make sure your adverts appear on the right shows, so you can be sure of reaching the right audience.'


Radio stations sell advertising in packages for like 15 adverts because it's easier selling them in packages and this is how they make their money. The advertisers can ask for the most popular stops but can't always get them because of trafficking.

Music Live

Theirs a variety of important things in a radio advert, one of the most important thing is the music. Music can make adverts catchy , an example of a radio advert which is catchy and gets stuck in your head is Webuyanycar.com. Advertisers can make their own music or use a popular song to use. When deciding on the music for a radio advert the advertisers select music which complements their message but theirs a variety of laws when it comes to the music in radio advert, they decide what music you can and can't use. Majority of popular songs are are subjects of copyright and they might not be available for commercial use. These are the four most important things to think about when deciding what music you want to use for your advert:

Fair use: Fair use is when copyrighted material is illegal to use because it's been exceeded. It's illegal to use music which isn't your own if you don't have permission to use it. 
Licensing: This is when you get permission to use copyrighted music. To get permission you need a licensing agreement and also two licences. 'The first license is from the owner of the copyright of the song and the second is the owner of the copyright of recording.'
The 7-second rule: Majority radio advertisers follow a rule called '7-seconds rule.' The rule is that you can include any song in an advert aslong as it plays for 1-7 seconds.  
Strategies: Instead of buying a license theirs other cheap ways to use music in your advert. The first option is to compose your own music and have it performed by a musician. Another option is to buy the copyright for the song, and get a different artist from the original to perform it.


In college for our radio station we have to catalogue of production FX and production music this is royalty and copyright free and therefore we can use it in radio advertising. We've not had to pay for the licensing to use these as they don't have copy right on them. We have a library of music that has been paid for so we can therefore use it on our radio shows. 

Production facilities

   There are two different ways a radio commercial can be produced the first way is through a commercial radio company such as Key 103, smooth and capital who has their own production studios for clients. They'll also be able to produce commercials independently.  Independent companies such as http://www.radioproductioncompany.co.uk/studio.html make ads for clients. They must have facilities such as sound proof voice recording booth, a mixing desk and an editing workstation/s that has editing software like Audacity, reaper, adobe audition or something similar to these. 

Sound proof voice recording booths can stop the sounds of instruments, vocals and other equipment getting outside. When in one of these you'll find if you sing loudly or play an instrument with the doors and windows closed you will not be heard outside of that room or you will sound very distant. They use these so no background noises like phone calls, conversations and other noises aren't in the recording. 

Both will also need a mixing board in order of them to be produced professionally, these are used to mix, route and change the level timbre or dynamic of audio signals. They can mix a variety of things such as analog and music. 
The last thing they must have is at least one working station which has editing software like Audacity, reaper, adobe audition or some other similar to these to achieve the commercial at professional standards. 'Reaper is digital audio workstation software: a complete multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing and mastering environment.' I've used this editing software at college when producing 3 different radio news stories.

We haven't used Audacity editing software in college for any projects.

'Audacity is a free, easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. The interface is translated into many languages. You can use Audacity to: 

1.  Record live audio.                                                                                                                              
2. Record computer playback on any Windows Vista or later machine.                                                          
3. Convert tapes and records into digital recording or CDs.                                                                          
4. Edit WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP2, or Ogg Vorbis sound files.                                                                             
5. Cut, copy,splice or mix sounds together.                                                                                               
6. Change the speed or pitch of a recording.'                                                                                            

 I also haven't used Adobe Audition in college for any projects, it erases, repairs and creates sound with powerful new features and seamless integration across tools. Some of the new tools are:

1. Sound remover                                                                                                                                
2. Preview editor                                                                                                                                   
3. Enhanced multitrack editing                                                                                                                
4. Advanced sound design                                                                                                                      
5. Roundtrip editing workflow                                                                                                                  
6. Automatic speech alignment                                                                                                               
7. Enhanced spectral display                                                                                                                   
8. Audio finesse                                                                                                                                    
9. ITU loudness metering                                                                                                                       

Production Roles

    There is a variety of different job roles in 'commercial production for Radio stations' some of these are a creative producer, recording engineer, copywriter and voiceover artists. 

    Creative Producer: They oversea everything in a radio show and organize everything and everyone such as music, guests and etc... They can also produce recorded content for radio commercials. They can also be the recording engineer and operate the sound, volume levels and etc... im a radio advert. 

Recording Engineer: Another name for a recording engineer is a 'Audio engineer', they're in charge of recording, manipulation, mixing and reproduction of sound. Majority of them creatively use technologies to produce sound for radio. Recording engineers concerns are the creative and practical aspects of sounds which includes speech and music, also the development of new audio technologies and advancing scientific understanding of audible sound. 

Copywriter: Copywriting is writing a copy for the purpose of advertising or marketing and the copy is meant to persuade the audience to buy a product or even influence their beliefs. They are used to help create a variety of things such as jingle lyrics, radio commercial scripts and a lot of other media products. Copy can also appear in social media content, which includes blog posts, tweets and other social networking site posts. 

Voiceover artists: These read out what the copywriter has wrote, they can cover a variety of different things for example voice actors, celebrities and session vocalists.