Formats

FORMATS:

Presenter led-An expert, often an academic, leads us through a subject, synthesizing all the arguments, simplifying the subject so it’s easy to understand. For example the programme ‘The surgery’ is a programme where the presenter leads each subject spoken of. There’s a certain topic based on ‘having fun’, during the entire programme the presenter leads the listeners on the different ways people can have fun, the presenter talk about her own life experience on having fun and directs the listeners to know why is it so important to once in a while let loose and have fun.

Narrated- Rather than presenter led, this is where a narrator narrates the programme. Similar to TV documentaries. Narrated programmes can be a stand-alone or be part of a presenter led programme. Examples includes wildlife radio documentaries and to some extent investigative pieces. Although this would probably start with presenter led, then lead onto a narrative programme about the issues.

Ballad style-

It combines four elements of sound: songs, instrumental music, sound effects, and, most importantly, the recorded voices of those who are the subjects of the documentary. for example BBC2 has a programme named " The ballad of miner's strike".In specially commissioned songs to mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the miners' strike, Radio 2 explores how lives were changed by the year-long dispute (1984-85). The Ballad of the Miners' Strike is a forthright and powerful exploration of contrasting human experiences.

Songs inspired by their stories propel the ballad through issues still causing debate a quarter of a century later. The ballad is a musical and historical tapestry which includes sequences of reflection and testimony, punctuated and driven by archive clips of news bulletins, reportage and interviews from the strike period with key figures miners' leader Arthur Scargill and Coal Board leader Ian McGregor.

Actuality based- recorded segment of a newsmaker speaking, generally lasting from 10 to 20 seconds; this is what people outside of radio journalism often call a "sound bite". Actuality is non-fiction radio genre that like the actuality documentary film uses footage of real events, places, and things, yet unlike the documentary is not structured into a larger argument.

Music and song linked- Features music and songs. Dessert island disc is an example of a programme that fits the format of music and song linked. The guests are invited to imagine themselves cast away on a desert island, and to choose eight recordings, to take with them; discussion of their choices permits a review of their life. Excerpts from their choices are played or, in the case of short pieces, the whole work. At the end of the programme they choose the one piece they regard most highly. Throughout the show music is placed and songs related to each story the guest explains about their childhood.