radio.netOnline Radio, webradio, internetradio & music - Listen for free now

Online Radio, webradio, internetradio & music - Listen for free now Top Stations Top Stations 1 WHTA Hot 107,9 2 WROD 1340 AM 3 WLOF - 101.7 FM The station of the Cross 4 KOMO - News Radio 1000 AM 5 WTOP 103.5 Top News 6 WCCO - News Talk 830 7 KDKA 1020 AM 8 WORL - The Answer 660 AM 9 WEEI 93.7 FM - Boston Sports News 10 ESPN Radio Top 100 Stations Near You Stations Near You See all stations near you Genres Popular Genres Pop Rock Hip Hop Chillout Country Oldies Electro Alternative 80s Classical House Jazz Top 40 & Charts Soul Classic Rock Blues Latin 90s R'n'B 70s African Music Ambient Asian Music Bachata Ballads See all genres Topics Further Topics News Culture Sports Politics Religion Language Children DJ Comedy Society Campus Radio Interview People Christmas Knowledge Economy Region Music Education See all topics The station's stream starts after just one spot Radio Your Way 30,000 Stations Worldwide. For free. Stations Near You Editor's Picks Top 100 on radio.net D100 Radio New York City, USA / Top 40 & Charts, Pop, Hits Birdsong.fm United Kingdom The Sound Of New York City New York City, USA / Disco, Funk, House, Soul Acoustic FM Leiden, Netherlands / Pop KATM - Cat Country 103.3 FM Stockton, USA / Country, Hits Chilli ZET World Jazz Warsaw, Poland / World, Jazz ItaliaRadio (MRG.fm) New York City, USA / 70s, 80s, 90s 108 Soul New York City, USA / Hip Hop, Soul, R'n'B FMHipHop Edgewater NJ, USA / Rap, Hip Hop, R'n'B Topics and Genres on radio.net Genres 25 genres Topics 19 topics Pop Rock Hip Hop Chillout Country Oldies Electro Alternative 80s Classical House Jazz Top 40 & Charts Soul Classic Rock Blues Latin 90s R'n'B 70s African Music Ambient Asian Music Bachata Ballads It may seem strange to think that there are people still alive today who were born before the introduction of what we call “radio”. If you asked the average person what “radio” means to them, they might tell you about their plastic kitchen radio they leave on in the background while making breakfast, the built-in car radio they listen to while driving to work, or even the portable, mp3-player-like device they can listen to with headphones on public transport (although this is more of an early-2000’s device, and is now considered fairly obsolete). “Kitchen radios” and car radios have already been around for a long time, but as we move further into the 21st Century, the concepts of radio and radio stations continue to develop with advances in technology. Since the beginning of this century, we’ve had the ability to call up any song we can think of and listen to it directly over the internet, or store thousands of them on our computers, and since the introduction of smartphones, we’ve had almost constant easy access to music when we’re on the go. So, why not offer the same easy access to radio stations? Whether you’re listening with your phone, your computer, or in your car, imagine being able to tune in to any radio station you can think of, from any style or genre, from every corner of the world. This is what radio.net is all about. What is radio? So, although you might think of a radio as being an electronic gadget, the word has many meanings and definitions. For example, the verb (“to radio someone”) means to send energy with waves from one place to another without the need for wires, whether it’s from one room to the next or country to country. A piece of equipment called a “transmitter” sends out the radio signals, which are picked up by a “receiver”. This is why the 1930’s and 40’s term “wireless” was used for household radios, as the concept was relatively new. Radio still has a lot of uses, despite the mid-2000’s rise of mp3 players and iPods, and more recently that of YouTube, and streaming services like Spotify. In fact, many people simply didn’t want to deal with new technology and stuck to their old ways, particularly older generations. Some people also preferred the radio because it constantly introduced them to new songs and artists that they wouldn’t necessarily hear with mp3 players. Radio is still important in both more-developed and less-developed countries. In many developing countries such as Thailand and Nicaragua, it’s used as an educational tool for teaching topics such as nutrition and health education. In South Africa, there are more than 150 independent radio stations, whereas 30 years ago there were only 10 on the entire continent of Africa. The History of radio Throughout history, it has been debated over who was the true father of radio, but despite Nikola Tesla’s demonstration of a wireless radio in 1893 in St. Louis, it was Guglielmo Marconi who won the race by transmitting the first radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901. In the following years leading up to the First World War, radio was primarily used to send messages to and from ships via Morse code, but was not used commercially. During WW1, it was used almost exclusively by the military, although the technology at that time was not advanced enough to replace the use of carrier pigeons. In the early 1920’s, radio began to rise in popularity amongst civilians. In the USA, the Pittsburgh radio station KDKA became the first to be officially licensed by the government, and its parent company Westinghouse began selling wireless radios to the public. In the UK, the Post Office received almost 100 requests for licences from would-be broadcasters, and so decided to set up the BBC. By the beginning of the Second World War, it had become a common family past time to sit around a wireless radio listening to programmes and news broadcasts. During WW2, the radio was vital in relaying news of the war to families all over the UK, and was an effective tool for boosting public morale. With the arrival of television in the 1950’s, radio programming schedules began to shift from serial shows to the playing of popular music. FM stations overtook AM stations, and the concept of the Top 40 was introduced, later becoming a key factor in the evolution of rock and roll. Financing of radio stations There are two main categories that radio stations fall into when it comes to financing, which are public broadcasting and commercial broadcasting. Public broadcasting Public broadcasting is when a radio or TV station draws its funding from either the public, the government, or both, with the objective of public service rather than financial gain. To make it easier to explain, let’s use the BBC as an example. Listening to a BBC radio station doesn’t require any form of payment, however if you watch live BBC TV, you have to pay a license fee every year. This money is like a tax that the British government uses to help fund the entire BBC, and so when you watch or listen to their stations, you won’t see or hear any advertisements. Commercial broadcasting Commercial broadcasting is when a radio or TV station is owned by a company or corporation, with the goal of financial gain, and exists without government funding. Instead, they rely on the common practice of advertising the products of other companies, which these companies pay the stations to do. In America, commercial broadcasting has been the norm since the beginning of radio, whereas Europe began mostly with public broadcasting, and has since moved further towards commercial. What is webradio? Web radio, or more commonly referred to as internet radio, is a technology that continuously transmits audio over the internet to your computer. It’s a technique of broadcasting audio using data transmission that is very similar to terrestrial radio, and it’s used by 57 million people every week. Internet radio broadcasters use “streaming” to transmit their stations over the internet to their users. Listening to audio streams means that you don’t have to download every song and store it on your computer. Instead, your computer downloads small portions of data (usually in the MP3 or AAC formats) in a continuous stream, usually a little faster than you listen ...