What Is Internet Radio and How Does Streaming Work?
Last updated: 19 September 2026
Internet radio is live audio delivered over the internet instead of through the air. You get the same kind of experience as a traditional radio station — presenters, music, news and talk — but it reaches you through a web browser or app, from anywhere with a connection.
Internet radio compared with other audio
Versus FM and AM
Traditional radio broadcasts a signal from a transmitter, so you need to be within range and tuned to the right frequency. Internet radio has no range limit: a station in another hemisphere sounds just as close as one down the road. Many familiar FM and AM stations simulcast online, and thousands of others exist only on the internet because they do not need a broadcast licence for a frequency or a tower.
Versus podcasts and music services
Podcasts and on-demand music services deliver files you choose and can pause, skip or replay. A radio stream is a single live programme that everyone tuned in hears at roughly the same moment. You trade control for the spontaneity and human company of a live show.
How a live stream reaches you
The journey from studio to speaker has four main steps:
- The source. Audio from the studio, playlist software or a live presenter's microphone is mixed into one continuous programme.
- The encoder. Raw audio is far too large to send live, so an encoder compresses it into a format such as MP3 or AAC at a chosen quality level.
- The streaming server. The encoded audio is sent to a server that can hand the same stream to many listeners at once. The station, or a company it pays, runs this server, and it gives the stream a web address (a “stream URL”).
- Your player. When you press Play, your browser connects to that address, downloads the audio in a steady flow, decodes it and plays it.
FullRadioList sits alongside this chain rather than inside it: we keep a directory of stream addresses, and your browser connects straight to the station's server.
Codecs and bitrates
A codec is the method used to compress audio. The ones you will meet most often are:
- MP3 — the long-standing standard, playable almost everywhere.
- AAC (and its low-bitrate variant HE-AAC) — generally more efficient than MP3, so it can sound better at the same bitrate.
- Ogg Vorbis and Opus — open formats, popular with independent and community stations; Opus is especially efficient for speech.
The bitrate, measured in kilobits per second (kbps), is how much data is used for each second of audio. Higher bitrates usually mean better sound and higher data use. Talk stations often use 32–64 kbps; music stations commonly use 96–192 kbps. See our data usage guide for figures.
Streaming technologies you might see
- Icecast and SHOUTcast. Long-established server software that sends audio as one continuous HTTP stream and can attach the current song title as text. Most independent stations use one of these.
- HLS (HTTP Live Streaming). The audio is chopped into short segments
listed in a playlist file (ending in
.m3u8). It scales well and is used by many large broadcasters. Not every browser plays HLS natively, which is one reason a station can work in one browser and not another.
Why streams run behind the broadcast
Encoding, sending, buffering and decoding all take time. Your player also collects a few seconds of audio in advance (the buffer) so that a brief network hiccup does not interrupt playback. As a result, an internet stream is typically several seconds — and sometimes tens of seconds — behind the same programme heard on an FM radio. It is harmless for music and talk, but it is why a live-sport commentary stream can lag behind the action.
Who runs internet radio stations?
- Established broadcasters that simulcast their FM or AM signal online.
- Public broadcasters offering news, culture and regional programming.
- Internet-only stations built around a genre, a mood or a niche audience.
- Community, campus and hobbyist stations run by volunteers.
Licensing and availability
Broadcasting music involves royalties, and the rules differ from country to country. That is why some stations only stream to listeners in their home country, and why a station may go offline if its arrangements change. Listeners are welcome to hear any stream a station publishes openly, but we cannot make a restricted station available where it is blocked.
New to all this? Start with our beginner's guide to listening, or browse stations from any country.