Monday, December 2, 2013

AFN Radio Goes Global Tuesday Via Streaming

The American Forces Network plans to launch more than two dozen Internet radio streams Tuesday, greatly expanding the reach of the military network’s radio programming overseas.

According to Stars & Stripes, nearly every AFN radiostation in Europe and the Pacific will get its own online stream, enabling listeners to hear their local stations through computers and mobile devices.

Another seven streams from the AFN broadcast center in California will carry a variety of options already available through satellite decoders, including talk, country, urban, classic rock, top-40 and adult hits. AFN’s PowerNet service — broadcast on AM in most locales — will also be accessible through the service.

“This is something that makes us relevant again in the arena of radio,” said Keith Fenske, AFN Europe’s chief of Web operations and architect of the online services. The expansion of the network’s online services “gets us out there so that people aren’t limited by their distance from a transmitter” or by technical constraints that prevent some Americans from being able to tune in their local stations.

The services will be accessible through the network’s Europe and Pacific region websites — anfeurope.net and afnpacific.net — and through its mobile applications, available for free through iTunes and the Google Play store.

Listeners in countries where AFN is authorized to broadcast will have access to all streams coming from the network’s broadcast center as well as stations in their region. The system blocks listeners in Europe from streaming broadcasts from the Pacific and vice versa by determining the location of his or her computer or mobile device.

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