Quantitative and qualitative data are gathered from 24 one-hour recordings of youth radio morningshows from 12 countries. The one-hour programmes are analysed following a sequence analysis approach in an attempt to decsribe a broad scope of parameters assumed to be responsible for station sound:

1. Types of radio talk are categorized and qualitative speech properties are captured via auditive analysis, rating prosodic features like average pitch, tempo and voice modulation.
2. Non-vocal broadcast elements, especially packaging elements like jingles, station IDs etc. are categorized and rated in comaprison to speech properties and music genres and moods.
3. Characteristics of mixing elements into a broadcast flow are examined, investigating the layering of audio elements, volume relations, types of transistions
 etc.
4. Finally, spectral sound qualities (results of filtering, dynamic compression etc.) are explored using visual, auditive and machine-based analysis. 

Analysis is done following quantitative and qualitative approaches. While certain aesthetic characteristics are expected to vary strongly according to national, but also social and technical contexts, the results are assumed to strengthen the hypothesis that specific characteristics are rather stable across examples from different countries, because

• radio as a transnational phenomenon (Anderson 1983) might have developed international standards following strong influences and ›role models‹ from the US, GB and other pioneering countries (VanCour 2008), and
• the sensory qualities of radio producing and — more importantly — radio listenting predetermine certain parameters of radio's aesthetics (Gray 2003).