In Recent Technological Change, Radio Stations have become the new TV stations. Radio stations gain visibility (literally), the station talent gains additional exposure and radio becomes more of a two-way experience for listeners/viewers. In addition, co-owned TV stations often do break-in interview segments with their partner radio stations as a form of cross promotion. The news casters and DJs banter for a couple of minutes resulting in good publicity for both stations.
The concept of Visual Radio?
Visual Radio is first and foremost a form of radio. The main idea is to preserve the leading role of the radio program. The additional video tasks are handled by automation OR a dedicated Person. The result is video of what’s happening in the studio that is streamed in parallel with the audio with most of the processes being completely automated.
What does a listener see?
A listener sees images captured by one several cameras installed in the studio. Or, the system can play video clips; music videos, video backgrounds or recorded programs. Many types of information can be added to these images. Video could include station or program logos, text including breaking news, or weather forecasts. Some stations use video to promo upcoming programs.
What are the benefits for a radio station?
Having video available to a radio station opens a whole world of new opportunities for both station promotion and sales. Experiments and experience gathered at some radio stations confirmed that the listeners are interested in seeing the faces of their favorite DJs and guests, they also enjoy music videos and on-the-spot live reports.
At Nokwe Ventures Limited, We pride ourselves with being first of the people to implement Visual Radio In Kenya.
Radio visualization configurations
Before starting to work on a solution it is important to define the desired “depth” of visualization, depending on radio station’s tasks and its re-fitting possibilities. We sit down and go step by step with our clients to establish the level of visualization they require.
We mention three main visualization configurations for our clients (some transitory variants between these three are also possible):
- minimal — only images captured by cameras installed in the studio
- optimal — images from cameras plus graphics
- full — includes all the possibilities of visualization: images from cameras in the studio plus graphics plus original video produced by the station.
