This week, I called George Bundy, president and chief executive officer of BRS-Media, located in San Francisco. BRS-Media has one of the largest Web sites containing links to radio station Web sites and to radio stations which offer live audio streams of their output via the Internet. Of these 1,630 station provide audio of their program output via the Internet. Almost half of these live streaming stations are in the United States. Second, with about five percent of the total, is Brazil.
Most radio stations use their own Internet servers to provide streamed audio.
In addition to providing a directory to almost all of the radio stations on the Web, the BRS Web-radio Web page also has links to all the audio streaming technologies. Real Networks' RealAudio continues to dominate, with about 85 percent of stations using that streaming technology. But there is also Microsoft's Media Player, as well as Streamworks, AudioActive, and a newcomer, Radio Destiny. With 56 kilobit per second modems now becoming the norm, I asked Mr. Bundy we are now at the point where the audio quality of these streaming technologies can really rival that of a FM broadcast signal. George Bundy is president of BRS Media.