Technology and processes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001bzrw - BBC 5 Live Driver presenters image
https://neo-online.co.uk/are-vinyl-records-made-of-plastic/?srsltid=AfmBOoru9Kzq72-C2qSpvo9SL2jfehegJ5FCTZqyYMp3tYg3cQHmEZtt - Vinyl image
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154180453508 - Splicing a cassette machine
https://www.discmakers.com/duplicators/ - Compact disk maker
Analogue to digital
Like all media, radio has been radically altered by the transition to digital production methods. Analogue media could be things like vinyls and cassette tapes as these are physical thing that you use and are not online. The term D.J stands for disk jockey and they play the music on the radio stations and mix the songs. They are also the presenter of the show. They present the radio shows as well as introducing and playing the songs on the radio. Traditionally and back in the day all radio production was dominated by analogue technologies. Songs were played using the vinyl records or on 8 track tapes. The songs actually had to be manually cued up by the disk jockey who is the presenter of the radio show. On a vinyl you would have to manually fast forward and rewind to get to the point you want. Some downsides of the traditional ways was that the equipment you needed was expensive as you needed a vinyl player and a tape player and both are not cheap meaning that producing radio was expensive and that having to manually do this was also time consuming for the Disk Jockey. Storage to keep all the vinyl's and disks took up a lot of space due to the size of disks and the size of the machines so this is another downside of the traditional way of producing radio stations.
Being a DJ in the 70s and 80s was a hard job as there was a lot to do such as talking, introducing music, cuing songs and actually getting different tracks ready to play on the radio station. So being an analogue DJ was an art form as you had to be very organised. Another thing that you have to have for a analogue radio show was having pre-recorded packages, idents, trailers and adverts which would have also been recorded using analogue tape and the spiced manually by cutting up the tape and splicing it back together in the same order and the right way. Some things such as interviews may have sometimes be pre recorded to be more organised when the radio station is live. You could record things on an analogue tape which is a physical thing. Splicing is when you edit the tape and physically cut the tape up and then physically fix it back together to make things like a trailer, interview and jingles. There was minimal room for error when it came to splicing due to how hard it is to edit and change things on the physical tape.
A CD standings for a compact disk and in the 1980s a compact disk came around and started to replace the cassette and vinyls as compact disks had a more superior sound quality and there was no things that a vinyl had such as a scratching and hissing sounds. Compact disks were more durable and a lot easier to store as you could fit a lot more songs on a CD over a vinyl meaning storage was a lot easier. in the 1980s compact disks were a lot less time consuming and you could make cue a song is less than two seconds. The compact cd was a lot better for organisation as you could have your adverts on one, a jingle on one and the songs on another. so in the 1980s compact disks make a disk jockeys job a lot easier. By the 1990s technology is evolving even more and there was new things such as the mini disk, a DAT which is a digital audio tape which made production for a radio show even easier. These new evolutions that were coming out meant that radio production started to get cheaper. For example the radio station that I analysed which was BBC Radio 5 would have disks with pop songs on them as this is the type of songs that they play on this radio show.
In the 21st century production was a lot easier even though CD's are still used a new technology called a play server was started to be used and you didn't need cassette tapes or vinyls as everything was on a play server which was a computer. This computer you were able to search songs and artists on it and then would physically cue them up digitally which would have been done on a advertisement break and you didn't need to think weeks in advance to due how fast this is. The DJ's now simply have all of the songs they need on a computer and simply click n a song to play it on the songs also tell you a specific timing before the first lyric is said allowing the presenter of the radio station to still speak and end the subject at the beginning of the song where there is just a beat and no lyrics yet but the player server computer would give them a countdown to stop talking. A digital mixing desk would help to transition one piece of audio into another in a smooth way for example a digital mixing desk is how the DJ would fade into a advert or a song and it gave they controls on mixing different sound elements which make the radio show. Even though in the 21st contrary there is still a lot to do it is a huge amount less than in the analogue days of radio production. High quality digital music formats such as WAV and FLAC are used for digital broadcasts. Non-linear editing packages such as Pro-Tools, adobe audition and sound booth are used to edit recorded programmes, packages, idents, adverts and stings. Some of these softwares are now built into laptops and computers and everything is now done digitally and not analogue and this is a form of technology convergence as you can do everything digitally such as recording and editing. Another technology which is a digital cart wall would have your advert, your jingle, your station jingle and pre recorded content on it and what would happen is you'd be able to be able to layer everything up and drag and drop things in and have it in order for when you want to play it. We can now also have more audience participation as computers are vital for the presenters to be able to interact with the audience on things such as social media and audiences members can email questions and song requests meaning we are getting instant audience participation and things are now LIVE. In the analogue era, the only way for audiences to interact with radio shows was via phone-ins or by writing a letter or post card. We can also now can watch radio LIVE through webcams and can tune in like television. In the online age you can now interact with the radio shows such as social media, blogs, websites, Email, SMS text messaging and Webcams. Radio now is pre-recorded and you are able to re listen to the radio show you want to listen to on platforms such as BBC sounds. BBC Radio 5 which is a station I analysed would have a player server as BBC is a big brand and have enough money for this software as they want everything to be organised and don't want to fall behind.
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