critique by :DENNIS MUSYIMI -08-1302

Program critique by Dennis Musyimi

BBC sports world and capital fm Saturday sports.

Capital fm is one of Kenya’s most listened to radio stations. The station’s music, presenters and programming target 18 to 35 year olds and those who want to feel young. This station feel of capital fm is friendly, fresh and local. Capital fm Presenters are people who talk “local language” and focus on what happening in and around Nairobi. BBC on the other hand is an established network that is associated with the reporting of serious issue of global concern. The presenters are serious people who view every thing from a serious point of view. Most of the programs in BBC air matters that concern the security, health and the general well being of humanity. I must admit that at first I could not find any two similar programs that I could compare from both stations. I thought BBC is a “purely news” stations. But then after listening critically I found out that there were some programs that were common in both stations with some similarities and a few differences.

I chose to critique two sports shows: BBC sports world and capital fm Saturday sports. The two shows are magazines.

BBC world sport
Sports world is the weekend sports program from BBC World Service Radio that is broadcast Saturday from 1400-1700 GMT. The show is also broadcast on Sunday from1600-1800 GMT but I chose to critique the Saturday episode only. Sports world has three English presenters, Russell fuller, Richard Connelly and lee James. The show has very little music.

This show covers international sport. The show involves live discussions and interviews from all over the world.  The show covers sporting events and makes an analysis of the sports events through interviews and discussions. The presenters have interest in sports. At least each one of them has considerable passion in a sport. The presenter show clear bias in the sports that they love. And as they present any thing about the sport they show a lot of passion and love for the sport. They are strong willed and compassionate in the love of their sport and their job. The plot is very clear and well planned every cue is accurately placed. The interviews are conducted at the right time. The scripting is very properly done. On the sound quality I would say thumbs up to the sound engineers, because given a chance to change or improve it; I would do very little if any because the sound quality is super; very good balancing of sound. However during interviews carried out in the filed there is some wind captured causing little distortion but for the recording done in the studio everything is very well done. The worldviews depicted in this show are several but the most outstanding are materialism and secular humanism.

Classic 105 weekend sport

Capital fm weekend sports is aired on Saturday from 2pm to 4pm. It has three presenters Eddie, Phillip and James just like bbc’s world sport and at times has visiting presenters. The whole show feels like a discussion on happenings in the sports world. The presenters give their opinions on various matters as guests comment and give opinions also.
The presenters also show some indisputable love for sport and some real passion for discussing sports issues. On the sound quality I would say that they are not yet there. They still have some ground to cover in terms of sound. As I listened to the show episodes, I could here clear imbalance between the voice and the music or adverts. From my experience so far in broadcasting, I could visualize the presenter on the console messing up with the faders or making wrong cues. Dead air was also there but for not more than 5sec. Given the chance to improve the show I would ensure proper cuing is done and make sure that everybody who operates the console is good at it. He/she should be a qualified professional. The presenters make a lot of fun and I think this shades more light on why they target the youth and those who want to feel young as their audience. Everybody who likes fun oriented stations will listen to capital fm. The jokes and the fun makes the listener feel part of what they are talking about.

They also had some aspect of stereotyping when it came to the personal life of sports personalities. Things to do with flashy life among the sports personnel depicted some stereotype. Secular humanism, spirituality and materialism are some of the worldviews in the show.