I’ve just come back from CES, and one of the overwhelming impressions I’ve had is that screen displays get better and better every year. There are many devices with beautiful UI - but radio within them is a bit of a boring, 97.3-like affair.

Radio has to compete with visually-rich media on the same device if it isn’t to look old-fashioned and boring. But there again, we need to ensure that we get these visuals right - nothing worse than, as I see in many European countries, a few TV cameras shoved into a radio studio, so we can watch the breakfast producer picking his nose.

The BBC is trialling, this week, a visualised radio player which is allowing us to experiment with the content on these platforms. It has a number of different ‘modes’, from the inevitable live video stream to other interesting ways of dealing with listener feedback.

I’ll help myself to another super-strong coffee, and try and stave off the jet lag - while my Creative Director, Yasser Rashid, takes up the story on the BBC Radio Labs blog if you’d like to discover more.

Thought this was worth a mention. I’m a huge fan of the concept, and recommend to all my students that if they make radio programmes, they should submit them for peer review and possible broadcast here on PRX.org

Shane Brown on “Street Cred” 89.1FM, Birmingham U.K.

Tim Wall’s earlier NRS entry “Thinking through the new economics of sound broadcasting over the internet” discussed the current need for new programming ideas and fresh radio services for listeners. His posting concluded that radio’s future held “considerable possibilities for public service and community broadcasters.” Following on from this theme and in keeping with Robin Valk’s NRS comments on inspiring stations like New York’s WFUV and Digbeth’s “Rhubarb”, I thought I’d report on an innovative station, just two miles from Birmingham City University’s Radio Dept.

Aston FM 89.1 is an example of community radio at its best ( astonfm.com ). They pay their way with regular commercial breaks promoting local businesses and have managed to wrangle a reasonably powerful transmission signal. Unlike many of their tightly rotated competitors, Aston’s playlist exceeds five thousand tracks – so you get an incredibly varied sound to the station. They also provide a legal home for underground radio by sharing their frequency late at night with local “pirates”.
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I don’t know if you know about WFUV. Based in New York, at Fordham University in the Bronx, ‘FUV is a college station that just happens to kick serious butt in New York City. Why? because they offer an individual voice in a stultifying conservative market. It’s ironic that a town as vibrant and stimulating as New York should produce such formulaic radio, but that is radio market economics these days. WFUV spotted a gap and charged right through. Now, though, there’s another reason to cheer them on, beyond their inventive programming, impressive audience figures and invaluable training and development work. Read more »