Music, some say it is food for the soul while others claim it tames the angry beast, even in this fast changing digital landscape it is as essential as it has always been.

Leading this revolution of the audio kind are a number of well known services, Pandora and Spotify being the most popular, there is however a third name that is on the brink of becoming the new name in radio, TuneIn Radio.

Wanting to become the YouTube of the Radio World TuneIn is slowly taking over the airwaves, taking their easy to use interface and 70,000 stations worth of music to every internet connected device in the world.

This new world of digitally delivered content has drastically changed the way we access and discover new music.  TuneIn Radio is playing its part in this revolution, and in the process hoping to become the internet radio service of choice. Like an AM/FM tuner that can pick up stations everywhere, now bringing 70,000 radio stations together for our listening pleasure. With music, sports, news, talk and comedy all live and all on air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The interface is simplicity, a fast to learn and customizable tile lists, most importantly it lets you get the music in no time. The home screen is presents three tabs Favourites, Browse and Recordings.  Browsing presents an easy to explore graphic interface of stations and artists. The interface and functions does vary across versions, so check their site first if there is a specific option you are interested in.

Functionally TuneIn has a number of tricks up its sleeve including an alarm clock function for that easy listening wake up experience. Recordings can be made at the press of a button and stored in your Recordings tab for later playback. Users can now connect using their Google login allowing their G. Calendar to be updated with upcoming radio show.

Playback audio quality is top notch as long as you have a fast internet connection; quality can drop on slower connections. With cable broadband audio quality was exceptional through our test B&W speakers. There have been a few drop outs in the last week of use but generally stability is really good. There was next to no buffering on cable or 4G connections but 3G did tend to buffer more often.

While music companies may be reporting a decline in revenue, services like TuneIn are working to guarantee that the revenues going forward surpass anything possible in the past.

With nearly 40 million regular listeners TuneIn has built a solid user base in the 11 years since it was founded. They still have some work to catch up to market leader Pandora’s 75 million listeners. Taking on well established players such as Pandora and Spotify along with the new kids on the block Rdio and Beats by Dre is no easy feat.

The use of radio services has become increasingly popular yet many of the big players have struggled to become profitable. In the old days of TV and Radio Pandora’s 70 million listeners would have been an impressive number, but if Facebook has taught us anything the scale of these internet enterprises is much greater. 10’s of millions may have been impressive once, now however internet services need to operate with 100’s of millions or billions of users to be profitable, incredibly profitable once the scale is achieved mind you.

With no one platform able to provide the numbers previously mentioned going cross platform is a necessity. TuneIn have taken the cross platform ball and run with it, and they just kept going. Versions of the TuneIn app are available on Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows (all), and Web. It doesn’t stop there however with the list extending to connected devices such as Sonos systems, Smart TV’s and the Roku box. Then there is the new frontier of automotive audio with the app appearing in the dashes of 30 models this year.

The automotive industry is seen as an incredibly huge potential market, taking the average car from an average o 70 stations to over 70,000 stations. Then there is the fact that over 50% of radio listening happens on four wheels, often while stuck in traffic.

TuneIn is Radio for the people, free to use TuneIn’s revenue are generated by on site ads and mixed in audio ads. The revenue itself is split between the company and the stations that contribute to TuneIn’s play lists.

If you’re looking for an incredible free music service here at Highpants we can give it the highest recommendation of including in our list of base installation apps, it is now on every Highpants machine. The app spread around the office like a fast spreading strain of the flu, but in a good way of course. Just remember to turn it up loud.

Reference: TuneIn Radio