Codes and Conventions of a Radio Trailer

We spent some time looking at existing Radio Trailers and picking out the codes and conventions within them.

For a Radio Trailer to be accurate it requires:

• An instrumental soundtrack running behind the voiceover of the advert. This allows the listener to hear the content of the trailer clearly and not be distracted by a track with vocals contained on it as they would clash with the speech.
• The music must be quiet enough to hear the voiceover and it must also be appropriate for the topic of the documentary. 
• The voiceover itself
• The voiceover must also contain a description of the programme name, what date and time it is on and what channel the programme will be on to allow listeners to know when they are able to watch the programme if they are interested.
• The voiceover should be scripted so that it is structured and makes sense.

The Radio Trailer may also contain:

• Sound effects, if they are relevant to the programme. E.g. - Animal sound effects on a documentary based around animals.
• It may contain audio clips from within the documentary to allow listeners to get an insight of the actual content within the documentary.
• The voiceover may use rhetorical questions to entice the listeners into watching the documentary.