Designing your
own radio station requires careful planning.
Radio stations transcend international borders, which means you can tune into programs from across the world at the touch of a button. Designing your own radio station gives you the chance to play your own music, and inform people from other countries of musical styles and trends. Turning the design into a working radio is the biggest step. However, you can create an initial plan by simply performing some research and deciding what kind of station you want.
Instructions
1. Perform research about currently available radio stations. Make notes about their format, style and schedule, and write a list about their strengths and weaknesses. Keep a file of all the information you collect throughout the steps for reference.
2. Become familiar with how radio stations are operated. Volunteer at a local network, hospital or community radio station or college station to do this. Understand how they operate, what equipment is needed and the management system in place that enables the station to function.
3. Decide what type of music your station will play. Jazz, rock, indie, classical or rock are just a few musical styles available. Choose the audience at which you want to aim the schedule and programming . For example, your audience may be teens, college grads or listeners 55 and older. This effects the tone of the presenters and style of the station.
4. Choose where and broadcast the station. You can rent an office and set up a transmitter (although this may be costly), or you could broadcast solely over the Internet. It is possible to stream your music over a hosting site such as spacialaudio.com, live365.com or talkshoe.com.
5. Make a plan on how you will operate the station-- this is largely dependent on your budget. Decide if you need a station manager, program controller or if you can work independently online. If you choose to have a team, design it to include a head of music, head of technology and presenters, for example. Refer to the information you gather in steps 1 and 2 to refine this.
6. Write a schedule. Plan what content the station will feature. A site such as talkshoe.com is purely speech based programming so allocate different subjects, presenters and styles to different days. If you follow a format similar to spacialaudio.com, which streams music, decide the order of the music you want to play so that it flows smoothly together.
7. Draw a floor plan if you are going to have a base for the station. The basic things you need are a soundproof studio, computer, mixing desk, microphone, music library and transmitter. Make a list alongside the plan about the equipment you need to obtain.
8. Collect the information about the station and review the information. Review the details you have chosen and check that the project is cohesive. For example, there is no point creating a design if your budget is $100. This project would be better suited to the online domain.
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