Forget DAB – eight great international radio stations you can listen to on the internet
Come the New Year, the airwaves will be a little lonelier. Classic FM is to turn off its DAB signal on January 2, so only listeners with a newer, DAB+ compatible radio will be able to tune in.
It’s a divisive move that will potentially lock out many, especially older listeners who may not have the means or inclination to trade in their trusty DAB/FM sets. And it comes on the heels of the government’s decision – postponed till 2030 – to switch off the FM signal entirely, thus erasing a whole landscape of listening.
But all is not lost. If you have an internet connection, then a smorgasbord of audio delights await. Here’s our pick of stations guaranteed to sharpen jaded appetites.
Radio Swiss Classic
A favourite of Telegraph letter writer Chris Ryder, this immaculately presented (well, it is Swiss) website allows you to toggle between Swiss Classic and its sister streams, Swiss Pop and Swiss Jazz. With a click, you can jump from Mendelssohn’s Nocturne from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Toto’s Hold the Line.
Yet its greatest asset lies in its sleek simplicity. “No advertisements, no news, no inane chatter, no one telling you their name every few minutes,” writes Ryder. “Just an announcer who tells you, at the end of the piece, its name in German.” Glück!
WFMU-FM
The longest-running freeform radio station in America, this Brooklyn-based broadcaster delivers a hit of genuine Williamsburg cool. Its programming ranges from self-described “flat-out uncategorisable strangeness” to “classic radio airchecks, found sound and dopey call-in shows”.
Mostly, though, its output consists of superbly curated music, majoring in rock, soul and gospel – as well as just the right amount of fascinating, far-out American chatter. The line-up of every show is controlled solely by the DJ: eclecticism is a feature, not a bug.
Monocle Radio
They’re based in London, but this radio programme – an off-shoot of the design and style magazine – is enviably international in its focus. It’s primarily a mix of intelligent chat, with a scattering of music shows to lighten the schedule.
Shows such as The Globalist and The Chiefs present long-form, podcast-esque interviews with experts on, for instance, international geopolitics and the global economic landscape. If you feel your exposure to current affairs has felt rather poky and parochial of late, it’s a horizon-widening cure.
WWOZ-FM
That radio is a cheaper form of travelling than a plane ticket is a honking cliche. But in the case of the always-transportive WWOZ-FM, New Orleans’s top independent music station, it also happens to be true.
As someone who has only ever experienced the smoke, swagger and swing of its music scene vicariously – and frankly couldn’t give a monkey’s for the tourist-choked reality – it’s a lovely listen. The “Guardians of the Groove” give us the good stuff, from bayou-deep swampy soul to flighty, cymbal-clashing jazz sets.
24/7 Bach
Sometimes, you want radio which challenges, invigorates and jolts towards new discoveries. Other times, all you desire is to sink into the warmth of the familiar.
The genius of 24/7 Bach, which is run by The Global Bach Community, a global network of enthusiasts, is that it does both. How could it not? After all, it broadcasts the work of perhaps the most expansive of classical composers – a musician whose work, as every devotee knows, ranges across the breadth of human experience. All of life is there, if you care to tune in.
WYNC
More of a Grand Central hub of audio than a single station, New York Public Radio is as enveloping as the city it emanates from. Truly, you could while away a lifetime of listening with streams ranging from morning news and views (yes, traffic updates are oddly compelling when they are 3,000 miles removed) to the freshest dispatches from New York’s music scene and the delectable Operavore, a channel dedicated solely to opera performances.
WYNC is also one of the originators of the podcast boom, with long-form investigations such as Serial and current affairs discussions. American politics can feel bewilderingly alien but, a bit like those traffic updates, there’s a raindrops-on-the-windowpane comfort in following it a (hopefully) safe distance.
Dublab
Skipping from one side of the States to the other, Dublab is LA-based community-owned station which has been broadcasting since “the dot.com era” – 1999 to be precise. Like many of the best independent stations, each programme is the unique curation of whichever DJ, artist or writer happens to be hosting. The music is invariably as sweet and cool as a Santa Monica sunset while the talk shows are impressively highbrow. Recent programmes, for instance, have included a discussion of art’s relationship with politics. But if that all sounds a little worthy, there’s also plenty of wigged-out California freakiness to keep things lively – a dose of Pony Sweat Aural Aerobics, anyone?
Kool 97
One for the audio omnivorous, this is one of the most intriguing stations on the internet. Jamaica’s venerable public radio station – it’s been on air for more than 22 years – is more rough-and-ready than some other choices on this list. But it’s all the better for this scruffy authenticity.
Listeners might be treated to dispatches from Kingston airport, reporting the flight times and interviewing new arrivals, or to perhaps the most rumbustious and eccentric chat programmes this side of UFO-belt small-town America. A recent visit took me to what seemed to be a live stream from a Jamaican nightclub where revellers bounced away, mostly in silence. It was marvellously strange – and a spiriting glimpse of the globe-trotting possibilities of a pair of headphones and a WIFI connection.
