For this  audio-review assignment, I chose to critique the radio show “Life before death”, mainly because this show got me thinking about the many things I need to do before dying and to start crossing things off my list. Another funny reason is because I like picking on Kierra, one of the team members:-)

First of all , this was an interesting show to listen to. You begun with a popular song that I deem as an attention grabber and very audience relevant, if am driving or near a radio and happen to hear this song play, I would definitely want to tune the radio to this station to listen to the show. That being said, I felt you could do more with your introduction, it sounded as if you jumped right into the program without giving your audience an idea of what the show is about. It’s like writing a paper without a thesis, the “thesis” or in the case, the preview acquaints your audience with the chain of events about to unfold. 

  I commend you for the fact that you each as presenters introduced yourselves to the audience., it reminds me of what radio-show presenters do in present day. Seems like you are the only group that did that.  Audibility wise, I found your voices to be very shaky, and there was a lack of consistency  as well.  Unlike other radio shows that jumped into the call-in segment right away, you guys chose a different route by asking eachother what you would each do before death. I thought this was fun but perhaps you could have had a call-in segment where listeners could call and in and be asked questions, or, you could read out questions that people may have sent to you.

While it sounded fun to listen to, overall it sounded too playful for my taste. I do acknowledge that you made an effort to make this as  audience engaging as possible, nonetheless, you seem to have lost sight of the fact that this was also an assignment you would be graded on and creativity counts a lot( was that too harsh?).

Content wise, the show sounded very two-sided, almost all of the interaction was between Colin and Kierra, and I felt that the other members of the team could have found other ways to be creative. For instance, one of you could have held you own segment where you read interview responses from people on the said topic.

Instead of the frequent awkward pauses which left me wondering the worse and would probably have changed the station if I could, what you could have done was add some sound effects, not necessarily music, but there are so many sounds in freesounds.org that will fit your topic choice perfectly.

Your radio show poster was a little too plain for such a controversial show, something more catchy and complimentary to the  nature of the show I believe would have been  a lot more appreciated.

Kierra and Colin took on the leadership roles in the group and I believe that they both did their best to execute it as best as they could. Instead of just presenting your free-run as your final project, you could have recorded and recorded yourselves over and over again, till you attained that level of “good enough” to present to the class. The extra recordings you do not used could have been put in your documentary on the making of the show and some of the challenges you faced.

I did however enjoy listening to you guys!