Radio Jingles

A Radio Jingle is designed to advertise something such as a radio show, station events or other media products like upcoming films or TV shows and of course commercial products. Other Jingles include station idents which are important for listeners to know what radio station they are listening too. All Jingles are different as they each have their own target audience they appeal too.
When making a Jingle it’s important to know what it’s for, and who’s it for? A BBC radio 1 audience for example tend to have jingles with lots of sound FX and echo affects that feature lots of non-diegetic sounds that are constantly changing and have been computer edited. Also the voice over tends to contain an echo also. The Jingle tends to last for at a minute which is quite long for a Jingle. They sometimes will play lots of small sections from songs that might be played within the show itself to allow the audience to know the theme of the show that Jingle is intended for.
However a Jingle for BBC radio 4 targets a much older audience and they tend to be much shorter in length only about 30 seconds at most. They feature soft melody background music that can be linked to the host of the show. The voice over is softly spoken in an clear manner that is easily understood, there are no sound FX or echo’s used at all.
Station idents are different from normal Jingles as they never change and always sound similar no matter what station you listen too.


Codes and Convention of a radio Jingle

• They always contain speech in the form of a voice over that provides clear and relevant information.
• They always have music that is also relevant to the target audience.
• Station idents occur frequently and are always the same sounding on every radio station.
• Radio Show promotions always give the name of the show and who is presenting along with the time of day the show is on. They might also either play clips from past shows or play clips of music that relevant to the show.
• News shows always play a formal piece of music or have beeps that signal’s to the audience the news is about to begin.

Three Jingle Ideas for SNC LIVE the college radio station

Here are three possible ideas for Jingles that could be used on the Suffolk New College radio station SNC LIVE, one of these is a station ident.
“This is SNC LIVE” – the music I’d use for the station ident would be a mellow chilled out piece of music that would be easily recognisable and catchy so you would remember it. It would be perhaps 10 seconds in length.
“Welcome to heavy metal rock show with me Mark Clowe, it’s the only rock show for students” – I’d use a wide range of different rock music within this Jingle to express that I’m targeting a teenage audience of students who listening to alternative music. Sounds FX that I could use would include roars and screams and maybe an echo effect on my voice to fully express my target audience. This Jingle will last about 40 seconds.
“This SNC LIVE NEWS” – For the news Jingle I’d use a piece of music that either features a drum beat or beep sound within it. Because most news programs have beep, beep sound FX at the beginning to allow the audience to know that the news is about to start and I want to do a similar thing with my Jingle. This Jingle will last for 15 seconds just long enough to say what needs to be said.