Streema focuses on simplicity for its new radio app

From a press release to news@media.info
Posted 12 November 2014, 12.42pm est

Streema, Inc., one of the largest radio listening services on the web, is on a mission to simplify the radio listening experience on mobile devices. The company today announced the launch of the Simple Radio iOS app, now available in the App Store. Simple Radio has more than 25 thousand radio stations from virtually every country in the world covering a never-ending assortment of music and talk genres. The new app makes it simple for users to choose a station and begin listening immediately with the reliability that only an established player in the digital space can offer. Streema already helps local AM/FM radio stations reach a global audience of more than 5 million monthly users through its website.

“Handhelds and tablets have brought about multiple benefits for radio listeners. They now have access to thousands of radio stations, better audio quality and almost ubiquitous portability,” said Richard Monte, CEO of Streema. “Until now, no other mobile app on the market offered the simplicity of a traditional radio tuner. Simple Radio immediately fixes that problem by making it easy to find and listen to global radio stations anywhere.”

Online radio is continuing to grow exponentially. A study from Edison Research and Triton Digital reports that 47% of all Americans ages 12 and older – an estimated 124 million people – said they have listened to online radio in the last month, while 36% (94 million people) have done so in the last week. These figures are up from 45% and 33%, respectively, in 2013. Time spent is also growing, with listeners spending an average of more than 13 hours a week listening to online radio.

The new app, with its extremely clean user interface, also has one-tap access to a user’s favorite stations, making day-to-day use as smooth as possible. Simple Radio takes advantage of a recently introduced feature in iOS8 and OS X Yosemite: Handoff. This feature makes it seamless for users to continue listening to their favorite stations on another device (e.g., MacBook, iPad or iPhone). For example, someone using Simple Radio for iPhone on their commute will be able to switch to their computer when arriving to work, without missing a beat. In the coming months Streema will release a version for the iPad and Android devices.

(Editor's note: this press release was sent out on October 27th, but only sent to us yesterday. It's of interest as a different approach to TuneIn for worldwide radio channels.)