R26 - The Weekly Radio Magazine

Analysing a newspaper article

An issue for the radio is that fewer people choose radio for the news.  A newspaper article from the Weekly Radio Magazine (published 11^th – 17^th 2007) has stated that ‘fewer people choose the radio for news’ which already tells me what the news article is about. It says that “people using the radio has their main source of news has fallen by a third in the last four years”.

The conducted a survey asking 2000 people which was their main source news. The results showed that television was first with 65% choosing it over other forms of media. This figure hasn’t changed since 2002. In fact it has decreased from 16% from 11%. Even though this article is from 2007, it clearly shows that situations for radio being used for news has not increased or gotten any better which we hopefully would like to change with my radio newscast as we have researched within the younger generation so it can improve for the following years.

The Ofcom ‘New News’ report said local news coverage on a commercial radio “has tended to be the first victim whenever stations have hit financial problems. Smaller stations have, by tradition, carried heavier burdens in terms of local news obligations and this has proved a particularly difficult circle for some to square.”

This shows just how easily the radio news of media can easily be affected by small changes and it shows that the growing and development of technology has impacted the radio news vastly. With out radio newscast we’d like to target the younger generation so that in time, radio news can be introduced into the public and reach it’s standards that it used to.