Financial Considerations

Financial considerations: negotiated production budget (by local sales team, by national agency, by regional agency); music royalty payments; voiceover artists’ fees; trafficking costs (scheduling, billing); rate cards

Rate cards are printed list of advertising rates charged commerical radio stations. Rate cards, usually, are for guidance only because the actual charges vary greatly according to the bargaining power of the advertiser.

 This is an example of a rate card, From this, it tells you about the radio station of how the radio station was founded, how this radio station is successful, what kind of listeners they have. They also tell you the terms and conditions of how they want you radio advert to be under their guideline. The price list lets you know how much it costs put your advert in certain time spots and how many times a day it will be broadcasted. Prices vary between the time it is played as it is more expensive to have your advert playing at peak time than others as there will be less listeners off peak so it will be more expensive to have a spot with more listeners.

Music Royalty Payments
When a radio advert is being played on the radio, it is recorded of how many times it has been broadcasted, the amount of airplay it has received and the size of the audience who have heard it, then the total royalty amount is calculated from a single advert after deducting tax and running cost and then it is split between the right holder and the performer. It is typically split 50/50.

Voice-over Artist Fees
When making a radio advert, you must find a perfect voice for your advert, which then requires you to hire a voice over, to find one, you would typically find an agency who deals with people who voiceover radio adverts. http://www.sohovoices.co.uk/ is a website where they have various people they have hired with different voices for you to choose which suits best for your advert. Then they will have a fixed rate of how much they charge hourly and with or without a studio or any other services you require.

Music

The right music can make or destroy a radio advert. We can't put any music in an advert as the genre has to relate to the product, or matter of the advert. In my opinion, the music used in a radio advert is the most important element in an advert as people recognize or remember a certain advert just by its song.

Without music, many adverts would lack ambiance and will lack the listeners to be drawn into the advert. We all have that one advert we have always remember for example, webuyanycar.com's advert has a catchy beat and  memorable lyrics. This shows that the music and the advert goes hand in hand.

Licensing agreements that let radio stations play songs for entertainment purposes do not cover commercial adverts. Although if a radio station lays an advert that uses an unauthorized music in an advert, the responsible all comes down on the advertiser and their creative team as they are the one who created the advert, not the radio station.

Fair use - It is illegal to use copyrighted content when it exceeds what is called "Fair use". According to the definition of fair use, if core components of the material are used, then fair use has been exceeded. As a rule of thumb, it's illegal to use music in a radio advert if you don't have the authorization and the tune can be recognized.

Licensing - It is possible to obtain permission to use copyrighted music through a licensing agreement. But you will actually need two licenses. The first is from the party that owns the copyright for the song and the second is from the party owns the copyright for the recording.

The 7 second rule - May radio advertisers operate under something called the "7 second rule", or the idea that you can include any song in an ad as long as it is plays for 7 seconds or under. From a legal perspective, the 7 second rule - any unauthorized inclusion of music from a copyrighted song violates copyright law.

Strategies - Although you can't skirt copyright law altogether, there are some strategies you can use to minimize the need for expensive licensing. One other option is to purchase the copyright for the song, but have it performed by someone other than the original artist.

This is the music library we are provided with by college which they have paid the license too.

Production Roles

There are many production roles that is required when producing an radio advert, we require a creative producer, recording engineer, copywriter, voice over artists ( voice actors, celebrities) and a session vocalist.


Creative Producer
Radio producers are the organised and creative people who co-ordinate the content of radio shows. Although the presenters are the main attention of any production, but without the producer, the production wouldn't exist as they determine the structure of the broadcast, makes sure that everything sounds perfect, creates the playlist, tracks interviewees, manages the production team and makes sure everyone knows what they are doing.

Recording Engineer
A recording engineer often work in recording studios making high quality sound recordings, mainly for music and entertainment industry. They operate complex equipment to reproduce music, dialogue, sound effects and other audio content to the highest quality. A recording engineer will set up the performer's equipment and instrument in the studio, set up and manage the sound levels and dynamics, record the sound, mix tracks on tape and then edit the recording into a final mastered product.

Copywriter
A copywriter generally works alongside with an art director or an advertisement. They will work with client briefs to conceive, develop and produce an advert. The copywriters are responsible for the linguistic content of the adverts as they compose advertorial contents such as slogans, catchphrases, tweets and scripts for a radio/tv advert.

Voiceover Artist
Voice over artists who work in commercials promotes a product, service or delivering a message. The particular voice over artist is often hired because of how their voice is and how it relates to a product. More dramatic commercials, such as a life insurance, may hire an artist with a deep and serious voice, which a commercial for holidays or a theme park will hire an artist who has more of an expressive and fun loving intonation. Some clients hire celebrities for their adverts because of the "Star theory" as people may buy a product because their favorite singer is promoting it.

Production Facilities

ff produce a commercial for an advert for a radio station, we require professional equipment, software and a soundproof room to produces these products for internally within the radio station or through a production house. The main equipment's you need for this type of production is a microphone, professional audio editing software, voice booth, speakers etc. The voice booth is an important kit for recording commercials as it will block out any background noise that will interfere with any voice recordings.

Here is a picture of a recording studio where it includes a computer for editing audio, a mixer to bring in and out audio, a voice booth to block any unwanted background noise, speakers, audio processor to process audio in to FM/AM and a microphone.

 For our college radio station, E6 Radio, we have a professional standard radio production room that is equipped with a professional recording kit, a sound mixing board which enables us to edit audio and to play multiple tracks at the same time and three audio editing software which are Reaper, Adobe Audition and Audacity. But we normally concentrate on Reaper and Adobe Audition as these software's enables us to have the ability to edit with multiple tracks where i can have sound effects, a song and my audio recording to be edited on one project. Reaper is an easier software to use for students like us as it is a very straight forward program and once you get to grip with the software, you will find everything easy to navigate and edit. As for Adobe Audition, it is a more complicated software as it has many controls and they use many technical terms which i do not understand as i think you will require training on this software and it is used more in a through a production house. For when we are making a advert in college, we are supplied with a list of songs which we have paid to have a licence to so we dont breach any copyrights.

aFor when we want to use any sound effects in our advert, we also have a folder provides us with pre recorded sound effects where they don't have any copyrights on these audio clips so we don't breach any regulations

But if we wanted to use a song which isn't in the library, we are aware that there is a "7 second rule" where i can use any song for 7 seconds or less without breaching any copyright laws.