Commercial
Radio
Unlike a Public Service Radio, Commercial Radio gets their
funding through advertisements, which means companies pay money in order to air
their ad on that radio station for however long.
The only way a commercial radio station can be aired is by
getting a commercial radio licenses which are awarded by Ofcom. You can’t just
buy or ask for a license, instead Ofcom advertises a license for a certain
area, stations must then submit a detailed application of their wanted format
and then present results of research to show the demand of their format of broadcasting
in that area. Then Ofcom will judge which of the applicants will be allowed
permission to broadcast in that area.
Commercial radios try to target a large audience by playing a
wide range of music, mostly chart music as it’s the most popular and liked
music, so more people will listen.
There are three main forms of commercial radio stations,
national radio station, regional radio station and local radio stations. National
commercial radio is basically a radio station that broadcasts on FM or AM all
over the UK, however this can be broadcasted by DAB, DTV and online also. A
regional radio station is one that is only available in certain areas of the
UK. Finally local radio stations is where they broadcast to just the local
area/town.
Some of the national commercial radio stations in the UK are:
xfm and capital radio. A regional radio station that is quite popular is key103.
Instead of operating as an independent company, local radio
stations are owned by larger corporate companies. The largest operator of radio
is Global Radio; it owns Classic FM and Capital.