LO1: Investigation of a radio station

BBC 1Xtra

BBC radio 1Xtra is a subsidiary station owned by the BBC. The station broadcasts digital urban, contemporary and black music.

Shown above is a graph of BBC 1Xtras listenership weekly audience. From this graph you can see the a steady incline of listener ship from September 2003 - March 2019. The stations peak so far was September 2013 where they had almost 1,250,000 weekly listeners.

The BBC is a non profitable organisation, meaning it does not take money from companies or shareholders. Radio 1Xtra will be funded by the BBC from the profits they make from selling programmes to other broadcasting companies. Advertisements are not run on the BBC since it is non profitable, however they can promote and advertise their own shows.

BBC Radio 1 Xtras target audience is from 15-30 years of age. This is to fill the age gap of Radio 1's audience upper range of 35. The station is bespoke to its target audience, from speech/ slang to resinate with the young audience to news bulletins to be relevant to the audiences current position.

The stations content is varied since the wide range in underground music differs to which presenters are on at the current time. However weekday evening shows begin with Mista Jam hosting a three hour multi genre show. Following this is six hours of tailored music being out out by the various DJ's they have on the station. Music such as UK Garage, Grime, Afrobeat etc. 4am-6am slot is re runs of the best shows throughout the week. The most popular show is on a Friday night with Charlie Sloth, this is due to his feature on the show named, 'Fire in the booth'.

The only way of accessing the show is through DAB or other internet streaming programmes such as Sky, Freesat, Freeview or virgin media. However BBC 1Xtra have a website with live current shows or older shows that were played earlier in the week so listeners can catch up if they missed a show. I feel this is a very modern approach for a modern station so this is fitting to the genre.