News Agenda - Sunshine Radio

Sunrise Radio is one of the most popular and successful independent radio stations in the UK reaching around 2 million listeners monthly. Its target audience is the Asian Community, and they project towards a young audience with the content they include such as the contemporary music and brief news coverage throughout the day. As a radio station they feel they are ‘in touch with customers on a personal level’. This claim shows their confidence that they know who their audience is and what they want, this makes their radio station a very powerful tool, particularly for advertisers.

They appeal mainly to C2DEs whilst the AB’s are likely to listen to a radio station targeted more to their taste (such as Radio 4). The adverts reflect this demographic, promoting household items such as sofa’s, as well as offers for family cars and holidays. The cars include Fiat 500 and Audi A1 which range from 10-13 thousand pounds which could be considered just over the average price of a family car. They also occasionally advertise with a targeted area in the country such as promoting events taking place in certain towns and counties. They also promote property availability in places such as London. Also, the Asian specific audience enables advertisers to precisely reach their customers. Advertisements include flights to Thailand, and Asian events around the country. They appeal to advertisers through their boast of credibility as a successful UK brand and describe themselves as the ‘most powerful cost effective Asian media network in the UK’.

The target audience also has influence on the news broadcast. Sunrise radio frequently broadcasts information on Bollywood and general news that usual has a connection to the Asian community. The detail of the news appears to increase as the day progresses, with later programmes providing more detailed accounts of events that were only briefly covered earlier in the day. They mainly cover national news, but will also include news considered more important for the Asian community such as a Sikh Gurdwara being built. They also refer to the latest Asian flight news regularly after the news and weather, such as delays and flight times. This could suggest that part of their audience is constantly moving in and out of Asia and UK, perhaps on business. Sunrise claims to be 50% news and discussions, however they don’t add too much to their news reporting. They don’t use music, relying only on the presenter’s voice. It appears that they feel their audience prefer the music on the shows than the news reporting. The news reporting usually last 5 minutes and the sports coverage is kept brief and refers mainly to national teams which include both England and areas such as Pakistan. They also keep interview clips very brief. However, as it is a 24 hour radio station, it means the news is constantly developed and relevant.

Posted in: