Australian radio sounds different, and looks different, too. So says radio observer and “futurist” James Cridland, who was in the country recently driving from Brisbane to Melbourne. He points readers to a slideshow on Flickr showing the visuals.

“Listen on DAB+ with a suitable radio and radio becomes a glanceable experience as well as an audio one,” he writes in a blog post. “Crucially: this doesn’t change radio from a ‘secondary medium’ — something you can enjoy while you do something else. This isn’t crap TV. This is radio that you can glance at to discover what’s playing; what’s up next; and other pieces of information from broadcasters.”

SLS, he explains, works on DAB or DAB+ by broadcasting the images along with the audio. “More usually this is known as DAB Slideshow, or visual radio.” Cridland thinks the idea is “slowly taking off” in Australia. He notes that stations in the United Kingdom are doing something similar.

In the United States, HD Radio proponents have been experimenting with visuals under the Artist Experience initiative.

Read the post:
james.cridland.net/blog/what-radio-looks-like-in-australia/

See the slideshow:
flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/tags/sls/show/