This article was published on September 18, 2012

TNW at IBC: The future of radio is on a screen. James Cridland explains Radio DNS


TNW at IBC: The future of radio is on a screen. James Cridland explains Radio DNS

The Next Web has been in Amsterdam at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC),  live streaming interviews from the event with the help of LiveU.

Much of the hype and flash at the convention was around televisual broadcasting and web streaming, but radio is a long-standing broadcast medium and it is not being left behind when it comes to innovation.

James Cridland of the Radio DNS project has been working on bringing pictures to radio. That might seem counter-intuitive as radio is often consumed while listeners are engaged in other activities, but adding data and imagery to audio can create a resource that people are likely to find useful.

“Radio DNS is the glue that links broadcast radio to the Internet,” explains Cridland. “You might need pictures on radio to see what song is playing or to find more information about a news story. It’s not television, but a screen you can glance at to find out what things are as you listen.”

Other information to complement listening such as travel updates for morning listeners or methods for tagging audio as a reminder for later will help radio become something less fleeting. If you have tried to recall who was speaking on a radio discussion show or not had a pen to hand when the title of a song is announced, you’ll start to see why a screen will become more common for radios.

Check out the video below where Cridland soldiers on masterfully as our lighting system fails and points out why more radios will be designed with screens as we reconsider audio consumption.

To find out more about the future of broadcasting, you can find our coverage of IBC here.

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