A broadcasting revolution means that listeners can now tune into more than 13,000 stations - but there's a lot of rubbish out there, writes Derek Scally
YOU MAY NOT have noticed it, but a radio revolution is well underway. It started years ago, when radio stations began streaming their broadcasts online, a big deal for anyone who enjoyed listening to patchy broadcasts of dubious quality through tinny computer speakers. Recently, though, the next stage of evolution has arrived.
Speaker companies and radio manufacturers have begun producing sleek new devices that can give you more than 13,000 stations to choose from as you eat your breakfast. They look like ordinary radios, except that the aerial at the back taps into your wireless internet connection. Via an online directory, users can scroll through the radio's menu and choose their station.
Search by location or genre, or find the station by name, and wait a few seconds until the world arrives in your kitchen.
At €100 and more, these radios are not cheap. But there are many reasons to give it a go. Perhaps the best one is the BBC. The world's leading broadcaster has embraced the digital revolution with relish, allowing anyone with an internet radio listen to the five main stations and several other internet-only stations in perfect stereo sound.
Beyond that, anyone tired of the provincial radio news on offer in Ireland can tune in to the BBC World Service. A real treat is the wonderful Europe Today programme, presented with style by Monaghan's own Audrey Carville.
The best kick is using the internet radios to access the BBC's fantastic "listen again" feature. Select the programme you want, click start, and an on-demand broadcast begins of anything from The News Quiz to The Archers Omnibus.
Even more internet radio fun awaits when you venture out beyond the pale. Online directory www.reciva.com, used by many internet radios, has clocked up 13,000 stations in 278 countries and 66 genres. Chinese breakfast radio, Sri Lankan phone-in shows, Soviet 1970s schmalz programmes, live Wagner broadcasts from Germany.
Cross the Atlantic with a click and Abbott and Costello live again in old-time comedy broadcasts. Try one of the original soap operas where a Wurlitzer organ accompanies the announcer's closing line: "Tune in tomorrow when you will hear Linda say: 'Oh David!'"
There are 552 classical stations, 534 jazz stations and, for that instant holiday feeling, mix a cocktail, put your feet up and turn on a calypso station from Barbados.
Particularly well represented is the genre known as "Christian contemporary", broadcasting what sounds like any other mainstream American pop until you listen closer to the lyrics: "You are all I live for/I see you seated on your throne/your glory, exalted, surrounds you".
Presenters on the Christian stations range from over-excited preachers to amiable housewives who tell how they save souls in Ulster County, New York, by flagging down cars offering free soup to strung-out teenagers. "I just got a call from a guy, didn't catch his name, but he said he was having a bad day, so we're going to say a quick prayer for you."
Internet radio creates a simultaneous feeling of connectedness - listening to the Galway races on Galway Bay FM - and isolation: is there anyone else listening to what sounds like a discussion in Yiddish of Fiddler on the Roof? And did anyone else hear a coded message in Vatican Radio 2's broadcast the other night of an instrumental version of Lover, Come Back To Me?
It's not all good news: the internet radio phenomenon has taken off so quickly that there is very little quality control. No one appears to have created a detailed directory of what's out there, meaning listeners get lost in the thicket of US radio stations with acronyms like WXLT and WAXQ.
The relatively low entry costs mean that every bore can now start their own broadcast. Anyone who's listened to Captain Jack, "the voice of the darkness" on "Paranormal Radio" needs no further explanation.
It's also slightly disheartening to tune into one of just five stations on the Faroe Islands only to hear the familiar whine of REM's Michael Stipe.
Radio hams will be disappointed by the generally perfect sound quality. But for anyone missing that retro feel of random interference and swooping sound waves, try YMMB, the air traffic control station in Melbourne.
Irish people living abroad have a choice of 183 home-based stations to choose from, both traditional broadcasters and internet newcomers.
Considering the potential of internet radio, it's sad to report that RTÉ has made a pig's ear of it. Lyric, 2FM and Radio One are all there, except for the duration of the Olympics, when Radio One has been blocked. Then there are RTÉ's internet-only stations like 2XM, RTÉ Gold and RTÉ Pulse, broadcasting dodgy music in dodgy sound quality.
On Tuesday night, the grand-sounding "RTÉ Digital Radio Network" was still broadcasting a news bulletin from the previous Friday. Over on RTÉ Junior, what sounds like an American cousin of Bosco announces "all your favourite songs and nursery rhymes" before segueing into a song urging listeners to "loosen up my buttons, baby, I'm a sexy momma". Is anyone in Montrose even listening?
Video may have killed the radio star but, RTÉ aside, the fightback has begun in earnest. One simple box and an internet connection gives you the jukebox that never fails, the soundtrack to your life. Go radio ga-ga all over again.