Listening to Radio Stations

Windows Media Player’s Radio Tuner lets you find radio stations from all over the world that stream music, sports, news, and weather over the Internet. Some of the stations you’ll find are broadcast stations that also stream their signal on the Internet, while others are Internet-only stations.

To open the tuner, click Radio Tuner in the taskbar. Radio Tuner connects to WindowsMedia.com and, initially, presents the display shown in Figure 17-18. The left side of the screen is divided into three expandable sections, called Featured Stations, My Stations, and Recently Played Stations. The first of these is a short set of "editor’s picks" to help you get started with the tuner. When you find a station you like, you can add it to the My Stations section. To return to a station you listened to previously, even one you didn’t add to My Stations, visit Recently Played Stations.

To play a station in the Featured Stations list, click the green arrow to the left of its name. Alternatively, you can click the name itself to get a little more information about the station. Three new links appear when you do this: one to add the station to your My Stations list (if it isn’t already there), another to visit the station’s own Web site, and a third to play the station.

Figure 17-18. Radio Tuner’s Featured Stations list provides a preset list of 10 news and music stations.

To move beyond the 10 featured stations, you can click one of the genre links at the right side of the screen—for example, Country, Top 40, or World Music. Don’t think that the small set of genres that appear in that part of the screen is all that Radio Tuner has to offer, though. If you click Find More Stations, and then, on the ensuing screen, open the Browse By Genre list, you see the generous set of categories shown in Figure 17-19.

Below the Browse By Genre list, hidden by the expanded list shown in Figure 17-19, are two additional search boxes. You can use the first, labeled Search, to hunt for radio stations by one or more keywords of your choosing—the name of a syndicated talk-show host, for example. When you want to find stations in your own hometown, you’ll find the second box—Zip Code (US Only)—invaluable. Don’t forget the Use Advanced Search link below the two basic search options either. Clicking this link opens the Advanced Search pane from which you can open lists of stations sorted by genre, language, country, U.S. state, station speed, broadcast band, keyword, call sign, or frequency.

Figure 17-19. You can browse the world’s radio stations using this impressive list of categories.

Using Presets

Once you add a station to your My Stations list it appears there, of course, and also in your Media Library, under the heading Radio Tuner Presets, as shown in Figure 17-20. Thus, once you’ve found your favorite radio stations, you can easily switch between recorded audio tracks and radio offerings without having to return to the tuner.

Figure 17-20. Stations that you add to the My Stations section of Radio Tuner are also accessible from the Radio Tuner Presets section of Media Library.

The Radio Tuner Presets category also includes Radio Tuner’s Featured Stations list. Unfortunately, you can’t delete these from Media Library. You can remove your own stations, but only by first removing them from the My Stations section of Radio Tuner. (Click a station there to reveal its Remove From My Stations link.)

Finding Stations in Your Web Browser

Windows Media Player’s Station Finder is, of course, not the only way to find radio stations on the Internet. You can also use your Web browser to locate stations. If you find a station that produces a streaming signal in Windows Media format, you can add it to your Windows Media Player media library by choosing File, Add To Media Library, Add Currently Playing Track while the station is playing. The station will then be listed in the All Audio folder of your media library.

Many Internet radio stations stream their signal in RealAudio format instead of Windows Media format. RealAudio is not supported by Windows Media Player, so you will not be able to add those stations to your library. Some stations give you achoice between RealAudio and Windows Media. Choose the latter if you want to be able to return to the station from within Windows Media Player.

Privacy Issues Involving Streaming Media

Whenever you download streaming media from the Internet—a radio station, a video presentation, or anything else—Windows Media Player, by default, sends your IP address and a client ID. The client ID is a GUID (a globally unique identifier—a very long number guaranteed to be unique in the world) that enables the media server to monitor the connection between it and your computer. According to Microsoft’s Privacy Statement (choose Help, Privacy Statement in Windows Media Player to read it in detail), possessing this client ID enables the server to "make adjustments to provide increased playback quality and to alert you to unseen events that occur when receiving streams over the Internet." The Privacy Statement asserts that this identifier contains no "personally identifiable information." Nevertheless, if you’re uncomfortable with this arrangement, you can tell Windows Media Player not to send the client ID. To do so, choose Tools, Options. On the Media Player tab, clear Allow Internet Sites To Uniquely Identify Your Player.

Suppressing the client ID in no way restricts your ability to receive streaming media. It’s possible that it will impair the quality of reception that you enjoy. If you experience problems with the client ID transmission turned off, try turning it back on and see whether matters improve.