LONDON — Radio is no longer an audio-only medium. While its core operations still involve sound programs on the airwaves, over the last 18 years, these have been supplemented with multimedia images and live video of presenters in the studio. During that time, just about every radio station in the United Kingdom has created some form of visualization setup, to the extent that cameras are now as commonplace in on-air studios as microphones.
In the last few years this has gone further, with live streams of radio shows and video and audio clips posted to the broadcaster’s website and social media accounts. This gives radio a much longer reach in today’s content-saturated media world.
The roots of visualization can be traced to the mid-1980s, when United States-based shock jock Howard Stern broadcast his shows on cable TV and released them on VHS tapes. The U.K. followed Stern’s lead in 1988 with “The James Whale Radio Show,” which was transmitted simultaneously on Leeds commercial station Radio Aire and Yorkshire Television (also to other parts of the U.K. via the ITV network) until 1992.
Not “cheap television”
Specific technology for visuals alongside radio appeared in 1994 with the publication of the Eureka 147 specification for DAB. At the time, many in the radio industry dismissed this as the basis for “cheap television.” Ultimately, the visual aspect of DAB was confined to text, station logos, album covers, or artist pictures. Visualization, as we know it today, began to appear in 2007, with the launch of Nokia’s Visual Radio. This brought interactivity to FM radio on mobile phones. Two years later, BBC Radio 5 Live experimented with a four-camera setup to present video of the football phone-in 606 on the BBC Red Button, part of the broadcaster’s digital TV platform, and “Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review” through the station’s website.
Since then, every radio station, from public broadcasters and big commercial groups to local, community and internet services, has some form of visual presence based on its sound transmissions. These include video clips of live radio shows to post on websites and social media (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter); live streaming of shows on websites and dedicated YouTube channels; and podcasts with higher production values, such as multicamera setups.
Technology provider Broadcast Bionics has developed two visualization systems for radio: the fully featured Bionic Director, which offers camera switching plus graphics generation from social media, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) web feeds and video capability; and the entry-level Camera One, with features for live streaming and sharing of video clips. The company’s brand and marketing lead, Matt Collison, observes that there are currently two trends in how video is presented. “For radio programs, it is more likely to be clips and highlights that capture a moment,” says Collison. “Podcasting is often longer form, sometimes 90 minutes, and more cinematic with broadcast-quality cameras and high-quality lenses.”
The trick is to remember that video isn’t an afterthought now — it should be treated as a core part of the planning and output.
Charles Ubaghs, managing editor of Global Player
The BBC’s approach
Commenting on the current state of visualization, the BBC says, “There is an audience expectation to be able to ‘see’ radio content online now. This is something BBC Radio 5 Live pioneered and has been developed and finessed by other BBC networks — not least Radio 1 and, more recently, Radio 2 — as well as commercial stations. Doing this immediately opens up opportunities on social platforms — for clips and, in some instances, live streaming. Audiences tend to have close relationships with radio networks and presenters. Visualization provides that extra window into this world.”
The BBC’s approach to shared content — and, it says, its objective — is to increasingly use its own platforms. In the case of BBC Radio, this is predominantly BBC Sounds, but the iPlayer video-on-demand platform and news and sports websites are also used where relevant. “Social media is the shop window where we can showcase our output and reach a new audience. But it can’t be lift-and-shift; you tailor the content for each platform and, accordingly, each audience. In this way, a commission for TikTok may look and feel different to Instagram, despite both being — on the surface — video platforms.”
Brand growth
From the commercial radio perspective, Charles Ubaghs, managing editor of Global Player and director of digital content for Global Media & Entertainment, comments that the group is creatively using and constantly evolving its video and social media output to build its audiences. “While we’re a radio organization at heart, video and social media are a core part of everything we do, and we’ve trailblazed the use of visualized radio, which has led to massive growth for our brands,” he says. “Visualization takes the content radio generates, which is incredibly intimate in nature due to the connection between presenters in the studio and listeners, and takes it to a wider audience who might not have heard it on-air.”
Global shares clips and other material on social media and websites across all its audio brands, including Capital UK, LBC and The News Agents podcast. Ubaghs says the trending outlets for this are TikTok and Reels but predicts 2025 could be a big year for YouTube and longer form video. “What really matters most right now is that the content should feel genuine and real,” he says. “It shouldn’t feel forced, staged or too over-produced. People want to feel like they’re seeing a moment that is unexpected or unique. We recently did a multicamera live stream on “Capital Breakfast” where a listener surprised his girlfriend with a marriage proposal. Thousands of people watched it in real-time on Global Player to see if she would say yes. Afterward, the VoD version generated a huge number of views.”
This kind of event is made for video simulcasting. Still, Ubaghs says more everyday presentations are also hugely popular. “There’s a huge online appetite for video clips featuring people sitting in chairs talking behind a mic. The explosion of podcast clips is testament to that. It’s something young people are gravitating to more, so it’s an opportunity for radio-derived content. The trick is to remember that video isn’t an afterthought now — it should be treated as a core part of the planning and output.”
The author trained as a radio journalist and worked for British Forces Broadcasting Services Radio as a technical operator, producer and presenter before moving into magazine writing during the late 1980s. He recently returned to radio through his involvement in an online station where he lives on the south coast of England.
This article originally appeared in the May/June 2025 edition of RedTech Magazine
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