At the launch of the Christmas radio schedules last week, James Purnell, director of radio (and much more) at the BBC, stressed repeatedly the need for radio to be ‘reinvented’ for this new digital age. But what did he mean by reinvent? Was he hinting at the need for a new, leaner radio, the sound-only stations running up cheaper bills for the corporation? Or was he envisaging a translation of the existing radio networks into something more than just audio, focusing not so much on what goes on in the studio but on the new digital future, visualised and captured...