Radio stations online: streams, schedules and archives

Radio sites offer three different things, and which one you want determines which site is useful. A live stream is what most people arrive for. A schedule tells you when a programme airs, which matters across time zones. An archive or podcast feed lets you hear something after it aired, and is the most valuable and least consistent of the three.

Streams are the fragile part. Broadcasters change hosts and stream formats regularly, and links published on third-party sites go stale without anyone noticing. A stream URL that worked last year has a good chance of returning nothing today, which is why any directory listing streams needs to re-check them rather than publish once and forget.

Geographic restriction is the other common obstacle. Public broadcasters in particular are frequently limited to listeners in their own country by licensing agreements, and the restriction is usually not explained on the page; the stream simply fails.

For archives, check how long material stays available. Many broadcasters remove programmes after a fixed window, often thirty days, and what looks like a permanent archive is a rolling one.