Are ‘subtitles’ the future of radio?

I have long lamented that radio cannot do subtitles. Still fresh in my memory was the time, many years ago, when I was managing editor of BBC Radio 3 and we tried to make Wagner’s operas more accessible. Using DAB text, we synchronized real-time English translations of Wagner’s never-ending masterpiece, the four-opera cycle, “The Ring of the Nibelung.” What a nightmare. It was such a lot of work!

However, I continue to lament the lack of subtitles for radio, especially since I have witnessed television using them constructively.

For instance, BBC Alba, broadcasting in the Scottish Gaelic language, produces television with English subtitles, meaning that non-Gaelic speakers can enjoy the programming and learn something about life on the Scottish islands without speaking this indigenous language. As a radio guy, I’ve been rather jealous.

This has now potentially changed. Around New Year, I came across radio with “subtitles” and translations, something I believe to be a real game-changer, not in a highly theoretical way, but with real and immediate benefits. Technology is now advanced to the point that this can happen accurately and in real time by building a slight delay into the audio stream.