How to listen to radio online

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Listen to radio online streaming in a couple of different ways

With all the newfangled gadgets that are popping up every day, it can seem like listening to the radio through a portable radio or your car stereo is gauche. Whether talking about talk radio, sports play-by-play, or just good old Rock and Roll, it has become possible to listen to the radio through the internet.

Depending on how you actually want to listen to radio online there are a couple of different ways you can go about accomplishing your task. If you are listening on your new laptop or desktop computer, there are different choices available to you than if you choose to go through a mobile device such as the iPad or Amazon Kindle Fire.

How to Listen to Radio on a Mobile Device

It didn’t take very long for mobile application developers to see the draw of making it possible to listen to all kinds of different radio programming over the Internet using a Smartphone or Tablet PC. Technically, there are two different ways to listen to programming such as Pandora, and other streaming audio.

The first way is to download an application that is built specifically for playing specific programming. Pandora will allow you to browse through thousands of different playlists in order to find just the right song for your mood. Downloading the Sirius XM application will allow you to listen to hundreds of different channels of talk radio, sports and of course music. Unlike Pandora, all of the radio broadcasts that you listen to on the Sirius XM app is live. This particular app is one of very few that can make that promise.

The best thing about today’s Smartphones and mobile devices is that a lot of them will even allow you to listen to the radio if you are able to find a particular radio’s website. Almost all Android devices will do this without much of a problem, Apple has adopted a near phobia of adobe, which allows quite a bit of video and audio to be streamed and because of this you might have more of a problem doing this with the iPad or iPhone. Every radio station’s site is going to be a little different and some of this will be trial and error.

Listening to the Radio Online on a Laptop or Desktop

Should you want to go a little more old school and listen to streaming radio on your computer rather than a mobile device, there are ways to do that as well.

Of course, most people understand that if you can surf to a radio station’s website on a mobile device’s internal browser you can certainly do it on your home computer. What most people don’t realize is that there is a database that has put together some of the country’s best radio stations for music, comedy and sports and it’s already on your computer’s desktop right now.

People look at Apple’s iTunes as little more than a music delivery device for your iPhone or iPod, or iPad but hidden in its dashboard is the “Radio” library. Click this icon and you will be taken to a screen where you will be able presented with radio stations covering everything from Adult Contemporary,to College, to Reggae.