How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Before producing our products, our group considered the importance of the combination of all three tasks, the documentary, the radio trail and the double page spread. We needed to ensure that certain themes were carried through all three products. For example, before conducting the interview with David Lloyd fitness instructor Harriett Fowler, we ensured that we had a piece of audio that we could use in our radio trail that would help promote the documentary. We did these types of things to try and ensure that all of products had similarities, as this would increase the authenticity of them collectively. The key part of the task, was, ultimately the documentary. It needed hours of prep time, storyboarding, filming etc. But the ancillary tasks were two tasks that we did on the side, to promote the documentary.

Radio Trailer
In the radio trailer, I feel that we have effectively combined elements from our main product, the documentary. It is a common convention, in many radio trailers to use excerpts/clips from the original documentary to give viewers an insight as to what will be in the documentary. However, it is important to point out that our documentary and radio trail do not have the same beat. When making the trail, I critically considered the purpose of the product- to advertise/make people watch the documentary. With this in mind, I decided that the backing track should be one that should strongly relate to our serious topic of fitness and health. So we decided to choose a trio of piano clips, which, along with the voiceover, portray a serious message to our listeners. Although our target audience is young people, and our radio station is BBC Radio 1, we know that there are elements of seriousness on this radio station, and that our audience are mature enough to connect with our serious trailer.

Radio 1 is an English radio station is association with the BBC (the same channel as our documentary will be on). Radio 1 have stated that:

We primarily target ages between 15-29

We decided that radio 1 was a good channel to broadcast our radio trail on because of their audience. Because our documentary targets people between the ages of 16 and 24, then to broadcast our trailer on Radio 1 is a good choice because it means people in our audience will be listening. Another reason we decided that BBC radio 1 would be a good channel to display our radio trailer is because of its capabilities to broadcast on digital distribution platforms, or DAB for short. DAB was officially launched in 2002, and it is common knowledge that many newer radios have DAB capabilities. We considered that young people in our age range would be more likely to buy a newer radio, than older models that people of an older age would own. DAB distribution is becoming more and more popular, and Radio 1 broadcast digitally on Freeview, Virgin Media, Sky and the Internet, as well as DAB radio channels. We considered that many young people will be listening on multiple platforms, not just the radio, and because of BBC Radio 1s DAB capabilities, we could reach a wider audience of young people.

Increased amount of media platforms that our trailer could be shown on, which means more people that will watch the trailer, because of our choice to show it on a station with digital broadcasting capabilities

So, because of our choice of target audience, and the radio channel we will broadcast on (and their capabilities), we have successfully linked the radio trailer with the documentary.

Magazine
We feel that our magazine targeted the same audience as our documentary, whilst having all of the features that you would expect from a radio time spread. We feel that we obtained the correct balance between a Radio Times article, that looks professional, and the need to cater to our target audience.

As aforementioned, a key link that needs to be present throughout the ancillary tasks and the main task is the target audience. In our article, we feel the use of youthful, secondary colours such as yellow and blue cater to the appeal of our target audience, whilst maintaining a professional look, like an authentic Radio Times magazine. The Radio Times readership figures, ending June 2012 for a calendar year was that it was read 2,222,000 times with peak readership in July 2011. (Quoted from MediaUK readership survey). We chose the station of the radio trailer to be BBC 1, bearing in mind their huge audience, and capabilities to reach people in a variety of ways. Our choosing of the Radio Times is no different. These staggering readership figures prove that Radio Times was a good choice to choose when considering where our article should be published. After all, the main objective of the ancillary tasks is to promote/advertise the main documentary, and the choice of Radio Times has done this.

Magazine and Radio Trailer together

I feel that an important part of ensuring that the Radio Trailer and Magazine link to the main product is making sure that they, as two products are very closely linked. After all, the Radio Trailer and the Magazine are the products that are trying to advertise the documentary, so there needs to be similar themes found within them. For example:

Programme Information
In both the radio trailer and the magazine, the information on time and date is found in both. As you can see, advertised in the top right hand corner of the magazine is the Time and date of the programme. This is also done in the radio trailer. This is a useful combination to use, to show that we have combined our ancillary tasks together thoughtfully.

Radio Trailer and Documentary together

For this section, we ensured that the voiceover was narrated by the same person, to ensure the flow of continuity. It is a typical feature of many advertising products that the voice that is in the documentary is also in the trailer too. This is because it gives the viewer something to recognise, e.g Its him from the trailer

= Narrated by the same person.

Magazine and documentary together

This is an area where I think that the combination of the ancillary task and the main product is particularly strong. There were a number of things that we did to ensure that they linked together in a number of ways.

Sharing of visuals
Documentary Magazine

Here are the same visuals but used differently in both products. As you can see in the documentary, we have the names of 4 popular fast food chains that all zoom in at once, almost like a montage of shots. In the magazine we have scattered the individual images this time, taking up the right hand third of the page. Here is a link that both pieces share, use of visuals. It is a good thing to share across the main product and ancillary product because it means that we can enforce ideas from product to product. Also, it means should the audience read the magazine, and then watch the documentary they might see the similarity, and think oh yes, I remember that from the magazine.

Are there any improvements that could have been made between the links of the products?
Despite the above successes, with linking the magazine to the documentary, I feel that there is an area that lets us down regarding our choice of the Radio Times. Although the Radio Times magazine does contain articles that are relevant to our audience, there is a wide range of articles that do not coincide with our audience and our viewing channel (BBC 3). For example, the radio times publishes articles that are aimed at viewers of BBC 4. The audience who receive BBC 4 programmes are of a much mature audience. Programmes that have been advertised in the Radio Times on BBC 4 include Sandhurst, a programme that shows cadets that leave finishing school. BBC 4 has an obligation, by its TV license, to broadcast 100 hours of arts and music and 110 hours of factual programmes annually. Because of this, it is only natural that BBC 4 attracts an older audience.

Older Audience to us?

This becomes a slight problem for us, as only a percentage of the articles in the Radio Times will be targeting our age group, but there will also be articles that target radically different audiences like those who look for BBC 4 programmes, so this could perhaps deter our audience buying the magazine, despite the fact that there are articles that will appeal to our audience.