Internet Radio-Spreading the Boundaries for Radio Listeners

The rapid technological progress over the years has brought us on the threshold of a new era where we can consider listening to online radio stations. There is nothing to deny the far reaching aspects of the web and the increase in number of the net users worldwide is a proof to that. Live radio is conceptually a continuous streaming of audio that is broadcasted over the web. Radio broadcasting over the internet is generally referred to as webcasting. There are various modes of radio webcasting and users have the opportunities to access live radio mostly free of cost and on some occasions on the basis of some fixed subscriptions. Online radio stations allow users to access their favorites regardless of time and place only at the expense of a proper net connection that is compatible of streaming. Since the internet radio services are accessible globally, radio lovers do not need to worry about staying connected to their favorite radio stations even while travelling abroad. Internet radio services offer almost all formats like news, sports, various genres of music etc which is perhaps far ahead of the scope of the traditional radio stations. In most of the cases, online radio stations are coupled with consequent traditional radio network.

Online radio stations are simply based on the method of delivering audio programming from one computer to other computers over any network via digital means. Online radio stations broadcast live radio which is essentially a combination of telecast of the traditional radio stations along with content from the internet-only stations. Internet radio would not have been possible without the discovery of the streaming technology in the mid nineties due to some serious technological advancement. Earlier, instead of accessing live radio, users had to download a particular audio file in order to listen to it. But subsequently, with the invention of the streaming technologies, radio listeners can afford to listen to any particular audio in real time. Streaming generally consists of both live material as well as archived clips of audio contents recorded earlier. In order to stream any audio, some software must be there which is capable of encoding the data transmitted from the radio stations. Listening to radio over online radio stations is therefore quite sensational from the point of view that neither any additional hardware is required nor any alternative appliance is required. Only a single appliance can serve both the purposes of computing as well as listening to live radio.

Online radio stations generally follow some interactive programming wherein users can include images, animations, and even videos unlike the traditional radio stations. The number of users listening to live radio on a particular channel can be easily traced by estimating the number of visitors of that particular page on a particular day which can produce some great information for evaluation of the popularity of that channel. The potential of the web to reach global audiences can be applied by the radio stations for not only reaching audiences worldwide, but also giving advertisements some cutting edges through graphics, banners, pop-ups etc. The facilities that the radio listeners can enjoy while listening to live radio over online radio stations are beyond the limits of the traditional radio stations. Therefore the traditional radio stations might get obliterated in near future owing to the increase in the number of net users