LO1: Investigation of a radio station

CAPITAL FM

Capital FM is a hit Radio station in the U.K with and average of 8.6m listeners a week. The radio station targets listeners from ages 14-34 year olds.

 Ownership

Capital FM is owned by the company GLOBAL, which formed in 2007 and also owns a number of radio stations across the company. The company broadcasts from areas across the UK such as Manchester, Yorkshire, Birmingham,London, Scotland etc.

Listenership

Looking at the listenership figures on the www.global.com/radio/capital-fm/audience/stats it clearly  presents the larger amount of female listeners then males through the percentage of female listeners being 60% while the percentage of male listeners being 40%. This is probably due to the music selections, topics etc. Also, Capital's target audience's age group ranges from ages 15 - 34 as 57% of listeners come from this age group. The radio station reaches 7.4 million weekly listeners across the UK.

Each radio stations has more or less listeners each week such as;

Capital London reaches 2.1 million

Capital Manchester reaches 511,000 

Capital Yorkshire reaches 1.1 million 

Capital Birmingham reaches 430,000.

Funding/ Advertising

Capital FM use sponsorship, paid promotions and advertisement to fund the station. This is featured in breaks between. The types of advertisements are targeted at the same target audience of the listeners to attract to the audience. As their target audience is mostly adults the types of advertisements featured are adverts relating to stuff such as car insurance, online shopping, universities etc.

All of Capital FMs radio shows are commercial radio shows. This means they receive their income and funding from advertisements 

   Audience

The target audience for all Capital's radio programme are targeted at 15-34, C2DE category. Although Capital does not target a specific age it has a much more higher percentage of female listeners than male listeners. Although, the radio station may cater to more female preference than male such as genre of music and types of discussions.

     Content

Along with advertisements and sponsors Capital FM features music from genres such as pop, RnB, charts etc, music which is targeted at its majority female, C2DE and 15-34 audience with advertisements relating to an adult audience. 

Music 

 Capital FM known as 'The UK's NO.1 Hit Radio Station' as it purpose is to play trending music varying from genre such as Pop, Rap and RnB.

Presenters 

Each of Capital's radio station's feature mixed genders presenting and local presenter with the same accent, which makes it much more relatable for it audience. The presenter are usually young from ages 20-30.

Capital FM is not a public service broadcasting radio station which means it does not have to feature news. However, Capital's radio shows sometimes include news usually based on celebrities or local news etc.

Advertisement

Again, Capital is a commercial radio station and earns its funding from advertisements. This allows the radio station to produce what it wants under the right regulations as they are not funded by the governments.

The advertisements featured are adverts such as food related, clothing stores/online shopping this is due to it relating to its audience.

    How people access it

   

      Capital's radio shows are distributed and accessible online as well as TV and Radio. On channels such as Sky- 375 and Freesat- 507, online at http://www.capitalfm.com/ and on regional radio stations.