Radio imaging guide

Broadcast continuity & radio imaging: how stations “show up” between songs — voice, station ID, sweeper, jingle

Continuity is how a station presents itself in the gap between programmes. On television that gap can be a person on camera. On radio it is almost always a voice: a station ID, a sweeper, a liner or a short jingle that tells a listener where they are before the next song starts.

This guide is for internet, community, hospital and hobby stations that want the hour to sound like one station. Most of it is about that voice. Two Irish television pages are summarised only as a contrast, because readers sometimes arrive here from articles about in-vision continuity. JingleLark reads a script in a radio voice and mixes it with an intro, a bed and an outro. It does not restore anyone’s archive footage, and it is not a television history.

Make a station IDRadio imaging guide

What “continuity” means (TV and radio)

Continuity is the presentation that joins programmes. An announcer, an ident or a short link tells the audience what they are hearing or watching, and what comes next. The programme itself is not continuity. The advertisement that sells someone else is not continuity either. Continuity is the station showing up in the gap.

On television the announcer may be seen. On radio the announcer is heard. The job is the same size: name the station, point forward, and leave room for the music or the show. A listener who arrives halfway through a song has no picture and often no dial position. The voice in the next break is the whole introduction.

  • The announcer in the gap names the station and the next item. On radio that is a recorded station ID or a live liner, not a desk shot.
  • The show is the programme. Continuity is the short link around it. Mixing the two makes both longer than they need to be.
  • A sponsor credit or a commercial sells someone else. It can sit in the same break as a station ID, but it should not do the station’s job.

In-vision vs voice-only

In-vision continuity is a television link with the announcer on camera, often at a desk or in a small set between programmes. Out-of-vision continuity is a voice the audience hears while the pictures are something else, or while there are no pictures at all.

Radio is voice-led. There is no corner logo and no presenter to look at between songs. The brand is a repeated voice, a short line and a sound. A station ID says the name. A sweeper carries the listener from one track to the next. A liner adds one fact. A jingle bed is the music under that voice so the link does not sound empty. That chain is radio imaging, and it is the practical form of continuity for a station that only exists in sound.

Television: in-vision desk

A presenter is on camera between programmes. The pictures, the set and the ident do the branding. Abstract blocks here stand in for a desk shot. They are not a frame from any channel.

Radio: voice-only chain

No picture. End of song, then a station ID or sweeper in one voice over one bed, then the next song. The bars are a stand-in for that short voice, not a real station’s audio logo.

Television continuity can put a person on screen. Radio continuity is the voice and the sound between songs.

A guide about television idents and logo motion is about what the audience sees. This page is about what the audience hears. The Irish notes below stay short on purpose so the radio chapters remain the spine of the guide.

Irish TV examples (summary, not a stills gallery)

This page is a richer radio-focused guide written to cover topics once illustrated on The TV Room’s Irish in-vision continuity pages (`…/tg-4-02-10.html`, `…/rte-1-25-10.html`), which are no longer live.

When this guide was written, archive.today could not be opened: the TLS connection failed, so no screen from those snapshots was used. Do not read any line here as “captured from archive.today”. The outline of each old page comes from the Common Crawl 2014 HTML of the same URLs (CC-MAIN-2014-41). Please open the archive.today links in the sources section if you want the original galleries. Rewritten guide; not a reprint of The TV Room.

The Wikipedia article that cited those pages is Continuity (broadcasting).

TG4, September 1999 – January 2004

The TG4 page was a stills gallery of in-vision continuity for September 1999 to January 2004, including evening links. Captions named announcers on individual frames: Aoife Ní Thuairisg, Síle Seoige and Sinéad Ní Loideáin, around 2000 and 2001. Links inside the children’s strand Cúla 4 were also done in vision. The same section pointed to separate idents and promotions pages. The gallery credited the pictures to TG4. For a radio station the useful contrast is narrow: a television channel can brand the gap by showing a person. A radio station brands the same gap with a voice.

RTÉ One, September 1993 – September 1995

The RTÉ One page covered in-vision continuity from September 1993 to September 1995, used mainly at the start and end of the day and in the early evening. Until late 1994 the backdrop was an electronically generated colour-separation image. A direct cut to the closedown clock was awkward, because the clock background came from the same kit and could appear while the announcer was still in shot. Around 1996 a physical set replaced that electronic backdrop. The page named Deirdre McAndrew and Lucy Potter-Cogan and asked for recordings from those years. Pictures were credited to RTÉ. Listeners on the radio never see that clock. They only hear whether the station name arrives cleanly.

How radio stations “show up” between songs

Between songs a listener decides whether to stay. Each produced piece has one listening job. Keep the jobs separate so the hour does not turn into a pile of voices.

  1. 1

    End of the track

    The song finishes or dips. This is the hole in the clock, not a place to start a new topic.

  2. 2

    Sweeper or station ID

    One voice says the name or the promise. A legal ID, when you need one, uses this same hole at the top of the hour.

  3. 3

    Next track

    The music returns. If the link ran long, the song feels late. If it never comes, the station stays unnamed.

The radio gap is a sequence: end of track, one voice piece, next track. It is not a second programme.
  • Station ID. Says the station name, often with a slogan. This is the piece a new listener should be able to repeat.
  • Sweeper. Bridges two songs. It reminds people of the station without stopping the music for a speech.
  • Liner. Adds one fact: a web address, a show time, a town. It is plainer than a sweeper and easier to update.
  • Jingle bed. The music under the voice. One bed, reused, is how separate files start to sound like one station.
  • Promo drop. A slightly longer ask for a show or an event, still in the same voice. It is continuity when it points back to your station, and an ad when it sells someone else.

To make the bridge itself, use the radio sweeper generator. To pick the voice that will carry every piece, hear the radio announcer voices.

Anatomy of a modern imaging package

A modern imaging package is a small set of those pieces, recorded in one voice over one family of sounds, so an hour feels like one station. Five roles cover a small music station. You do not need dozens of cuts before the first stream. You need each role to exist, then enough variants that the same line does not play on every break.

  • Legal ID

    For a licensed station, the top-of-hour identification required by the regulator: call letters and community of license in the US. An internet-only station can use a plain hourly ID in the same slot.

  • Sweeper

    The everyday bridge. Several short variants, one promise each, so the name returns without becoming wallpaper.

  • Liner

    The line you can rewrite this week: a contest, a request address, a programme time.

  • Bed

    The shared music under the voice. Swap it and the station sounds like it changed format, even if the scripts stayed.

  • Drop

    A show tag or a short promo in the same voice, used when a named programme starts or when you need one forward pointer.

Five roles in one imaging package: legal or hourly ID, sweeper, liner, bed and drop. Labels only — no station logos.

For what each element is, and a starter set aimed at a normal week, see radio imaging. Definitions of the same words sit in the radio imaging glossary.

From slogan to air-ready station ID

This is the short path from a line on a whiteboard to a file your playout software can run. It makes one station ID. A sweeper uses the same path with a shorter script. Nothing here claims to recreate a television ident.

  1. 1Lock one sloganWrite the promise in a few words. The station name and that promise are enough for the first ID. Extra ideas belong in a liner, not in this line.
  2. 2Write the station-ID scriptPut the name where it can be heard, usually first or last. Read it aloud. If you run out of breath, cut a clause. A legal ID, if you need one, stays call letters then city, with the slogan kept out from between them.
  3. 3Pick one voiceChoose the announcer voice you will reuse on sweepers and liners. A second voice later is a format decision, not a test you run on day one.
  4. 4Mix intro, bed and outroThe bed should dip under the words and return in the gaps. Keep the same bed for the first handful of files so they belong together.
  5. 5Download MP3 or WAVTake the finished file, not a dry read you still have to produce. JingleLark levels its own mixes so those files meet each other at a similar loudness.
  6. 6Put it in playoutImport the file, name it so you can find the hourly ID, and schedule that ID on the hour. Leave the other segues alone until the ID is actually playing.
Slogan, script, voice, mix, file, playout. Each step is one decision, then the file is on the log.
Type a line and get a mixed station ID

Import and scheduling for AzuraCast, RadioDJ, mAirList and PlayIt Live are in how to add jingles to playout software.

Common mistakes

Small stations usually fail the gap in one of four ways. None of them is fixed by adding more production. They are fixed by leaving things out.

Too many sweepers

A voice on every segue stacks on top of talk and on top of the songs. The bars here are deliberately uneven: that is the hour a listener skips.

One sonic logo

The same voice and the same bed, used on purpose. The shape repeats. Listeners learn it without being told the name on every join.

Abstract shapes only: crowded sweepers beside one repeated sonic logo. Not a real station’s waveform or logo.
  • Sweepers on every segue. The name should return often, not constantly. If two produced voices touch, drop one.
  • No shared sonic logo. Unrelated voices and beds make one hour sound like several stations. Pick one voice and one bed and keep them until the format actually changes.
  • Lengths that wander. A five-second ID and a forty-second speech do not fit the same hole in the clock. Decide the hole, then write the line.
  • Loudness that jumps. Songs and IDs should meet. Files from JingleLark are levelled to the same target; files from anywhere else need a check before they hit the log.

Sources and the original The TV Room pages

This page is a richer radio-focused guide written to cover topics once illustrated on The TV Room’s Irish in-vision continuity pages (`…/tg-4-02-10.html`, `…/rte-1-25-10.html`), which are no longer live.

Rewritten guide; not a reprint of The TV Room.

The two pages below are no longer live. Full URLs are listed so you can search them in an archive. Archive.today candidates are listed as well. This guide did not open those archive.today pages: TLS failed, and the summaries above follow the Common Crawl 2014 capture (CC-MAIN-2014-41) plus facts a reader can check on the Wikipedia continuity article. No TG4 or RTÉ stills are hosted here. Announcer names are historical labels from those gallery captions, not a claim that this site holds the recordings.

If you want the original galleries, use the archive.today links. They are the right place for the stills. This page will stay a radio guide: definitions, the voice-only chain, a package outline and a way to make one station ID.

Questions about continuity and radio imaging

Is continuity the same as ads?

No. Continuity tells the audience which station this is and what comes next. An ad or a sponsor credit sells someone else. They can share a break, but they should not share a script. A station ID that spends its seconds on a sponsor has stopped doing continuity.

Do internet stations need this?

Yes, if you want a new listener to learn the name. An internet-only station usually has no legal ID rule and no channel logo in the corner of a picture. The voice between songs is the whole ident. One hourly station ID and a few sweepers in a single voice are enough to start. Add liners when you have a fact worth repeating.

Hear the station in the gap

Type the station name and one slogan. JingleLark reads it in a radio voice and mixes a station ID you can download. It will not recreate a television ident, and it does not sing.

Opening a station or changing the sound on purpose? The launch checklist is in what goes in a station imaging package.

Make a station ID