Journalism and Media students at the University of Sunderland, and volunteers at the university’s community station 107 Spark FM, will be joining forces with the community radio sector across the North East on Thursday evening. It promises to be a huge night for the region’s community media outlets, with an eight hour election spectacular that will be simulcast on six stations from Middlesbrough to Alnwick.
The programme will begin just before ten in the evening as the polls close, and be heard on 107 Spark FM in Sunderland, Spice FM and NE1 FM on Tyneside, Bishop FM in Bishop Auckland, Lionheart Radio in Northumberland and CVFM on Teesside. Reporters will be stationed at and reporting live from multiple counts, plus three outside broadcast locations across the region. The broadcast will come from 107 Spark FM’s state-of-the-art studios at the David Puttnam Media Centre at the university’s St Peter’s Campus.
Richard Berry and Katy McDonald from Sunderland media department’s lecturing staff will lead the team on the night, along with 107 Spark FM’s Deputy Station Manager Lee Sevenoaks. Tune in and hear the most exciting election night for thirty-six years unfold. You can hear the show on any of the participating station’s FM frequencies, and streaming at www.sparksunderland.com
Information supplied by Fred Marden, Head of Radio – University of Sunderland, Station Director – 107 Spark FM and
Branch Chair – Radio Academy in the North East
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
The Night was really successful, hopefully we will be able to do more stuff like this in the near future!
May 9th, 2010
Would you be able to share some of what you covered and how it worked?
May 10th, 2010
Sure. We had reporters at 6 election counts in Sunderland (who declared first) Gateshead, Newcastle, South Shields, Bishop Auckland and Middlesborough. This was so we had a reporter covering the seats where we had affiliate stations. (Berwick Upon Tweed, the constituency for Lionheart Radio were going to declare on Friday afternoon and the station had their own plan for this)
We took as many of these live as we could, although we were able to source some live audio live via Sky. We had several candidate interviews including a live interview with Nick Brown and managed to beat the BBC to David Milliband!
We then had a field reporter in Newcastle, talking to voters and businessmen there and a group from a local youth parliament in our ‘green room’ watching the coverage and giving their perspective as new and future voters.
We also drew in a member of Newcastle Student Radio as a pundit and he provided us with the much needed analysis and background.
Overall, we think it went really well and we plan to talk in detail to the stations who opted in to gauge their views – especially as it looks like we’ll be doing it all again in a few months time!!
May 11th, 2010