RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

both for adults and for children . But we also want our documentaries, and our cultural programming, to use the radio art form as much as possible , too . We want our radio station to sculpt sound and to use the airwaves to display our work like a sculptor uses a museum . We want to create what we call an acoustical art form using sound . We could never afford to even try this , on our budget, in film ог videotape . But using our modest studio and our tape recorders we can spend much less топеу than we would for film or videotape , and create sounđ sculptures with audiotape . Our rousic and sound ef-fects libraries have thousands of different tunes and noises that we can add to what we record оп the streets, called "actuality" in the trade , to create апу mood we desire . And we discuss as a radio staff how we want to sound when we are on the air live , as a disc јоскеу or announcer , also aiming for an acoustical art. That is what we have in mind when we talk about the art of radio . ”ln _mind” ; where sound can create images and feelings . Often we 'don't succeed in getting the sound of WHCR to be exactly what we want it to be , but we try to learn f rom these f ailures , too . Section Four: WHCR AND ITS LISTENERS In the last section , we talked about how WHCR uses radio as an art . In this section, we are talking about the opposite ; using radio as a "science” . The science we are looking for is one which helps us to know our listeners better and to be a communication channel for their needs anđ interests . This science is in a way the other side of the coin of the market research that commercial stations use . While commercial radio wants to find out about you to use your characteristics in đefining you for advertisers , we want to find out about you to be able to tell you more about yourselves . The broadcast industry in this country spends hundreds of millions of dollars a уеаг оп market research . They use that research to decide what programs to put on the air in television or what format to set up in rađio . WHCR has already made its commitment to be the neighborhood radio station for this community , so we are not trying to understand our audience to change what we are đoing . We study our listeners to do what we are committed to better . This means , however , that we will expect our listeners to be committed to us , too . WHCR wiil depend on listener support for a large portion of our budget.

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