What Is Internet Radio and How Does It Work?

Updated 11 September 2026

Internet radio is live radio delivered over the internet instead of through an FM or AM transmitter. A station encodes its broadcast into a continuous digital audio stream, sends it out from a server, and your browser or app plays it in real time. There's nothing to download and no playlist to build — you tune in and listen, just as you would with a traditional radio. The only difference is that the signal travels over your data connection rather than through the air, which removes the limits of geography entirely. A station broadcasting from Tokyo, Lagos or Lisbon is suddenly as close as your local FM dial.

The short version

• It's still radio. Live, continuous, programmed by someone — not an on-demand library.
• It travels over the internet. Any station with a stream can reach any listener with a connection.
• You listen through a player. Usually a web page or app that finds the station and presses play for you.
• Most of it is free. Stations stream openly; directories help you find them.

How internet radio actually works

The journey from studio to your headphones has three stages, and none of them require anything technical from you.

From studio to server

Inside the station, the same live output that would feed a transmitter is sent to an encoder — a piece of software that compresses the audio into a digital format such as MP3 or AAC. The encoder pushes that compressed audio to a streaming server, which is simply a computer built to send the same audio to many listeners at once.

The stream

The server sends audio as a continuous flow of small chunks. Your player collects a few seconds of these chunks before it starts playing — that's the buffer, and it's why internet radio runs a few seconds behind a terrestrial broadcast of the same show. The buffer smooths over small hiccups in your connection so the music doesn't stutter every time your Wi-Fi blinks.

The player

This is the part you see. Any modern browser can decode an audio stream natively, which is why web radio works without plugins or installs. On 72FM, for example, everything plays directly in the browser — desktop or phone — with no download and no account needed to start listening.

What you need to listen

Three things, and you almost certainly have all of them:

1. A device with a browser. Phone, laptop, tablet — anything made in the last decade.
2. An internet connection. Wi-Fi or mobile data both work; radio streams are light compared with video.
3. Somewhere to find stations. This is where a directory earns its keep. Rather than memorising stream URLs, you browse by genre, country, mood or language, search for a name you half-remember, or work through the country browser until something catches your ear.

That's the whole setup. If you want a step-by-step walkthrough, our guide on how to listen to radio online covers it from the first click.

Internet radio vs traditional radio

A quick orientation — we go deeper in our internet radio vs FM/AM comparison:

Who actually runs the stations?

The broadcasters do. An internet radio directory is a map, not a record label: public-directory stations on 72FM link to their official sources, and 72FM doesn't own or operate them. The stations you hear are run by the same broadcasters, communities and independent producers who always made radio — the directory's job is to help you find them and to organise the sprawl into something browsable, including themed collections built around moods and moments rather than algorithms.

Why it still feels different from a playlist

A stream and a playlist are technically cousins, but they feel nothing alike. Radio is live: someone, somewhere, chose what plays next, and every listener hears it at the same moment. That's why internet radio remains the easiest way to discover music by accident — you can't skip ahead, so you end up hearing things you'd never have searched for. For people tired of being recommended more of what they already like, that's the entire appeal.

In short

Internet radio takes everything familiar about radio — liveness, human programming, the pleasure of stumbling onto something new — and frees it from the transmitter. A station streams its broadcast from a server; your browser picks it up and plays it. You need no special equipment, no app, no account, and no budget. Just a connection and a bit of curiosity.

Ready to hear it for yourself? Start listening on 72FM — pick a genre, a country or a mood, and press play.