Primary Research (SubCity)

Primary Research: Questionnaire

1. Do you listen to Dubstep, Drum and bass, Hip Hop or Grime, or maybe all of them?

2. If not then what don’t you like about these types of music?

3. How old are you?

4. Do you listen to the radio, if so then what station/stations?

5. What time of the day would you likely listen to it the most, and where would you be?

6. If a radio station was created that played more non mainstream music such as drum and bass and dubstep, would you listen, and if not why?

7. Other than the music being played, what other things should be added e.g. news, a game or quiz?

8. Why would you add this and not others?

9. In a one hour radio slot, would you use 25 minutes of music, 35, 40, or 45?

10. Finally if all the above questions helped create a radio station with the genre of music being the above, do you feel that Sub City FM would be a suitable name, and if not why?
These questions were asked to 100 people who seemed to look/be between the ages of 15 to 25 at the Bull Ring in Birmingham.

Primary research analysis

Charlie and Dan went to the Bullring to ask these questions to members of the public they felt looked between the ages of 15 and 25. They chose the Bullring specifically because they knew that it was a central hub where lots of people with very different opinions, styles and interests would be. They chose these questions as they felt they were suitable for the show we wished to create. They purposely chose the first question to be about their music interests, rather than their age as if they did not like the types of music then we needed to know at the start, rather than a few questions in. Other important questions asked were what features they would like to hear as well on the show, other than just music? This was important as it gave us the chance to see what our hopeful target audiences would want to listen to that would be relevant to them. Another very important question was how much music should be played in the show: 35, 40, 45 minutes? This was because we wanted to know how much music time the majority of people wanted to hear, so that we could work on filling the rest of the time with news and features. They also aimed at keeping the questions open ended so people did not just answer with yes or no answers (even though most did anyway), they wanted them to specifically tell us what music they listened to, and where and when and why they might choose a certain feature over another.

The outcome of the questioning was as follows:

On answering question 1, 71 people said that they listened to all, or some of the genres listed; and 2 of these said that they sometimes listened to the genres. This meant that 29 people said that they did not listen to the genres of music that were listed. Despite 29 people being a large number, in comparison to 71 people saying that they liked the music then I would choose to believe that the overall majority did like the listed genres of music.

Question 2 was for those who said that they did not like the genres of music in question 1. This was designed for us to find out why people did not like these types of music so to see if we could change that through the show. 48 of the 100 people asked either answered not sure, or just did not answer at all. A further 33 people gave various reasons as to why they did not like the music: some finding it boring or too loud and some just stating that they hate it. But 14 people just said that they specifically just liked other genres of music. The feedback from this was good as those who did not like the music, mainly did not like it because they were into other genres and not because they were just against the music. This furthers our purpose for doing this because the likes of Dubstep and drum and bass just isn’t as mainstream as other genres, but it does not mean that their following is not huge because it is.

Question 3 was asking people how old they are. Our original target audience was from 15 to 25 year olds, based on the radio 1 target audience. As we knew that there was no point in asking people of older generations, or younger; we purposely sought out those members of the public who looked to be within the ages of our target audiences. 48 out of the 100 wee between the ages of 14 and 19, and out of this number 38 of them listened to all or 1 or more of the listed genres. With just under half of the people asked being between 14 and 19, and the majority of those liked the music, and then we definitely are on the right track with the choices of music. The other 52 people asked did beween the ages of 20 and 30, with 31 of these also like the listed genres. From the evidence from question 1 being linked with that of question 3, then I believe that the target audience can remain the same along with the genres of music.

Question 4 wanted to know whether the people listened to the radio or not. 46 people said that they did listen to the radio, with the most common answer being radio1. However out of the 46 people who said yes, the majority of these were between the ages of 14 and 19, even though they got the majority by a mere 2 extra answers. 53 of the 100 said that they did not listen to the radio at all, with 1 person saying that they listened to it sometimes. Because 53 was the overall number of people, then that meant that more people did not listen to the radio than did, which would cause us a problem with creating the show; but the results from question 6 help us out there.

Question 5 asked what the most common time and place they listened to the radio was. 18 people listened to the radio at p.m. times, whilst 8 listened at both a.m. and p.m. times. 20 people listened to the radio at a.m. times, but when adding the majority number of 20 with the 8 who listened at morning and evening then you reach 28. This means that we would target our listeners at p.m. times. Also as the majority of people listened to the radio in the car, then we would aim it at coming home from work and college and university from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Question 6 asked the public if they would listen to the radio if a station was created that played more non mainstream music. 33 of those who already listened to the radio said that they would listen to a station that played more non mainstream music, and again 33 of those who did not listen to the radio said that they would listen to a station if it played more non mainstream music. Out of those who did listen to the radio already, 14 of them said they would not listen to a non mainstream station, and 18 of those who did not listen to the radio said that they would not listen to a non mainstream station. From all of these answers, quite a good majority of the people said that they would listen to a station such as the one we plan to create, and therefore outweighs the fact that in question 4 more people did not listen to the radio than those who did.

In question 7 we wanted to find out what other features or sections of the show we could or should include keeping our listeners interested. The majority of people who answered this question said that they wanted to hear the news, with 46 people suggesting it. Followed by 20 people who said that they wanted to hear all the features listed. 13 people said they did not wish to hear any of the listed features in a show, but that was beaten by 10 people who answered games, 2 people who wanted games and quizzes. There were 6 people who wanted quizzes and 1 person who wanted both news and games. We will use all of this evidence to come up with ways to keep the audience interested and interactive with the show. Such as the live interview with a Dj, and the news that will be relevant to the age group and the announcement of the winner to the 'Dubstep bogeys game'.

In question 8 we wanted to know why they would add a certain feature and not any of the others. We did this to see if we could choose a feature that people did not choose much and make it better, and hopefully make it more appealing. A majority of 39 people did not answer this question, or just did not know why. Also 6 people felt that by adding features then they would take up valuable music time in a one hour show. 35 people were happy to hear the news as well as games and quizzes, whereas 11 people thought that the news was boring, and so were games and quizzes. By using this evidence I feel that we should use a news feature, but remain away from the usual games and quizzes that the radio uses. It may be more relevant and appealing to use music based interviews and have the only game feature be the announcing of the winner of the bogeys game.

We used question 9 to see how the public would feel about the amount of music being played on the show. We worried that in a one hour slot, we did not want to play too much music and leave too little time for anything else, or vice versa. Our answers suggested that 40 minutes was the best time with 39 people agreeing with this time length. In second place was 45 minutes with 31 people choosing this time period. The rest of the choices were not very popular with only 9 for 25 minutes and 18 for 35 minutes. We feel it would be best to stick to 40 minutes of music time so that we have enough time to cover all other aspects of the show. However as 45 minutes was a close runner up, we can select a song that may run over a couple of minutes, or play a song at the end of the show to close with; or more than likely let the Dj we plan to interview live play a short mix for us.

The final question we asked to the 100 people of the Bullring was whether they thought that if all the questions above were used to create a radio show with the genres of music being the ones listed above; then would they find the name Sub City an appropriate one. Thankfully out of the 100 people asked all of them answered yes so we can safely acknowledge that the name is acceptable to the public.