radio

In Slacker Radio, curated stations that are organized by musical genre meet algorithmically generated playlists based on artists you pick (a la Pandora). As with Slacker Radio on other mobile platforms, the Android app lets you stream music from preprogrammed genres and stations, or from stations you set up yourself. As you listen, you can view album art and bios, block a song or vote it a favorite, and skip ahead (limited for free users). If you like what you hear, you can share a link to that station on SlackerRadio.com via e-mail, text message, or Twitter.

Over the … Read more

Just like the bigger Web-based version of Pandora, the Android app lets you create stations based on artists or songs, browse through its genre-based stations, or fire up a Quick Mix. If you're already a Pandora listener, you can enter your log-in credentials, or you can create a new account right from the app.

As you listen, Pandora lets you rate tracks up or down, or skip tracks at will. Your ratings here will help Pandora home in on exactly the types of music you like, so its important to be an active listener. If you're a lazier … Read more

I've been a Sirius Satellite Radio subscriber for ages, but I'm ready to pull the plug. I still think some of the music and talk channels are pretty good, but the sound quality has always been iffy. The treble sounds like it's underwater; it "swishes" and sounds garbled. I got around that by playing Sirius over my Tivoli PAL table radio, and since the PAL doesn't have a tweeter it softens the sound enough to make Sirius less irritating. The Tivoli is also on the other side of the room, and that helps to … Read more

Earlier this week, with almost no fanfare, Apple introduced a new Podcasts app, effectively breaking audio and video podcasts loose from the iPod app where they've resided since the iPhone's early days.

As a die-hard podcast fan, I was interested to say the least. But after spending some time with the new app, I must admit I'm disappointed.

For starters, the interface is something of a mess. It doesn't flow; there's too much moving back and forth between different screens and sections. I'm a fairly tech-savvy user, and it took me a while before … Read more

Yahoo is teaming up with radio giant Clear Channel on a distribution and cross-promotional deal, expanding on its strategy of striking content-sharing deals with traditional media brands.

The companies announced a partnership late Wednesday in which Yahoo will use Clear Channel's iHeartRadio platform as its official digital radio service. As part of the multi-year deal, Yahoo will carry nearly a dozen live Clear Channel events annually, as well as live video from this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.

iHeartRadio boasts a monthly audience of about 45 million unique listeners and 80 million downloads of its mobile … Read more

Popular streaming radio service Slacker Radio today launched a new category of stations that offers a different sort of listening experience to its users: lifestyle. Debuting as part of a partnership between Slacker and ABC Radio, the new stations offer curated talk radio content that includes advice and other stories dealing with the lifestyle interests of both men and women.

For now, Slacker's new lifestyle stations come in two flavors: Men's Life and Women's Life, with much of the content coming from sources like Esquire, Car & Driver, Consumer Reports, Popular Mechanics, Complex Magazine, and GQ. The … Read more

It appears that Internet radio and other digital music services are starting to pay off for musicians.

SoundExchange, a nonprofit organization that collects and distributes performance royalties on behalf of artists and labels, announced today that it had distributed $1 billion in digital royalty payments to recording artists and record labels since its inception in 2000. The organization, which collects royalties from satellite radio, Internet radio, cable radio, and similar services, said it distributed more than $108 million in royalties in the first quarter of 2011 -- the first time its distributions exceeded $100 million in a quarter.

The accomplishment … Read more

In the case of a major earthquake, terrorist act or some other disaster, cell phones will be useless, according to radio broadcasters.

Today at a congressional hearing in Washington D.C., broadcasters are expected to tell lawmakers that in emergencies, cell networks become clogged and have proven to be unreliable. What people need are FM tuners built into their handhelds that will enable them to receive radio reports.

That's what Jeff Smulyan, chairman and CEO of Emmis Communications, which owns AM and FM radio stations, is expected to make this argument when he testifies before a House subcommittee on Communications and Technology. … Read more

RealPlayer SP for Mac is a free media player that comes close to mimicking the features and interface of its Windows cousin. While many users can get by with the bevy of other excellent free media players available for the Mac, RealPlayer SP does offer some nice extras in an integrated interface, such as the ability to download streaming video through a companion app (the RealPlayer Downloader) and modify it for specific outputs or devices with another companion app (the RealPlayer Converter). If you also install the RealPlayer Download Agent, the RealPlayer Downloader will automatically detect when you're streaming … Read more