Radio.co Reviews

I've tried several different radio broadcasting systems, and radio.co has the easiest-to-use service with a lot of great features.

Just make sure you enclode your audio content at 41400 Hz. We were initially using 48000 and it "worked" but didn't sound great (some slight distortion). As long as you stick to 41400 it sounds great.

Their cloud system is the best out there for hosting a radio station without needing local computers or servers.

The most helpful and best part of Radio.co is that it is always on the go and easy to use.

There is nothing to dislike about Radio.co.

Get it! It is the best!

The best benefits to Radio.co is that it’s not too expensive and always the best to have with you.

Radio.co is an absolute one-stop shop for setting up an online radio station. Cost-effective, straightforward videos and the BEST support of any online service I have used (and that is plenty).

Not much. Being based in Australia, the time zone difference means I am out of sync with support hours.

Do it. Very pleased with my experience. Very pleased :-)

Setting up a new online radio station. It is still a bit early to talk about benefits but plenty to like. Full confidence that I will be able to achieve everything I have set out to achieve.

1) Everything is literally easy to use, from scheduling right through to music database management. The UI is visually great & clear so there’s no clutter or anything else that could potentially hamper your workflow about accessing whatever you want to use.

2) No extra pieces of broadcasting software are needed. Everything is practically in one place.

3) Compatible with a majority of audio equipment to get broadcasting within minutes.

4) Ease of access from devices such as smartphones or tablets so you can continue your work on the go or check to see if everything’s running ok. And as long as you have a stable internet connection, you can literally broadcast from anywhere. Super handy if you were to report on events or do a live show at a festival right through to interviewing guests elsewhere if they’re unable to come to you. In that case, trust us, get yourself a Rodecaster Pro as well to compliment Radio.co with your radio setup, especially because it’s a very versatile & powerful piece of audio equipment that’s portable enough that you can take it on the go with you to those kinds of events & interviews. Sure, it’s expensive but you’ll thank yourself for investing in a piece of kit you can have around for years since RODE aren’t releasing a follow up to the Rodecaster Pro anytime soon, even though it was released in December 2018 & there have been major beneficial updates to it in terms of firmware over the years. Plus, radio stations & enthusiasts are still buying these because of how popular it is with nothing else coming close to how good it is to use & the top-quality audio you get from it.

5) The platform provides very useful & understandable analytical data to judge station performance. Especially a very handy automated report for this as well that gets emailed to you on a weekly basis so that you can see where the peak listenerships are & take advantage to drive up more listeners with more content that seems to be going down well with the audience at those popular times on whatever day of the week.

6) Radio.co’s support team are always helpful & knowledgeable, especially from our personal experience so far. The individuals that you’ll likely be speaking with on a regular basis for issues or just any questions you may have about the platform itself are honestly polite & respectful. There were a few occasions during the year since we joined up where we ran into some issues, but nothing major that has impacted our experience of using the platform. There were also delays in getting a response sometimes, but obviously, it was understandably due to Covid. Things have gotten better with this, particularly since Covid restrictions have eased & it feels like the support team are more available.

7) Pricing plan is decent & still relatively inexpensive, plus there’s room for negotiating & flexibility in terms of how much bandwidth, listener stream numbers, storage, etc that your station will need, especially in the beginning. You got the convenient option to temporarily freeze your account for a set period of time if you’re unable to carry on broadcasting due to financial restraints & then pick things back up where you left off once you feel that you’re able to carry on broadcasting your station again. However, you have to resume your account to keep all the hard work you’ve done within the set freeze period, your station gets removed after that & you’ll, unfortunately, have to re-apply again.

8) The stream quality is great & you can very easily embed your online player anywhere or share to social media platforms where the station’s & the presenter’s followers can quickly access to tune into your stream. You can even design your own schedule widget to embed on your station’s website which is super handy if people want to check over the span of 2 weeks what’s available to listen into.

9) Web building is through Weebly, which is attached to the platform’s dashboard to access and is very easy to use to set up your own webpage for your station in no time at all. Same for the app builder for Android & iOS. There’s plenty of tutorials on how to get started & how to use the creative tools to design something that fits with your radio brand’s image, colours, etc. (if you’re going for the app builder feature, you must sign up to a Google & Apple developer account. But don’t worry though, because it’s easy to understand with step-by-step instructions given to you on how to get your app on the respective store platforms via an automated email by the Radio.co team once your app passes the developer review phase)

10) This isn’t platform related, but it’s worth pointing out that if you do run into some issues during your experience with the platform, then visit their YouTube channel, which has a variety of videos that range from software compatibility problem-solving, educational & training tips for presenters, help & advice on how to make your station a success as well as very handy reviews of broadcasting related equipment on a regular basis. It even has video contributions from the founder of Radio.co – James Mulvany, which are useful & a worthwhile watch as well.

11) The great thing about it as well is that it’s presenter friendly which makes it easy for them to understand & jump on to broadcast their show in minutes. The main dashboard that they can see even gives a countdown timer on the day that they’re going to broadcast their shows & tells them how long they got until they go live.

12) Presenter Show Promos get shown up in a very neat way via the metadata on the online player as well as the apps so that the listeners can know who they’re tuning into at any time of the day. Plus, this helps to further promote your talent, which they’ll appreciate.

13) There’s a lot of creativity to be had on the platform, which is pretty amazing & blew us away with how much we can get done in no time at all, simply because of how easy they have made everything to use. It genuinely feels like we could spend hours on it, and one of the best features is that if you’re away doing whatever & you leave it idle on any part of the dashboard, it’ll actually pause it so that you save bandwidth usage. Big props to Radio.co for implementing something that might be considered minor, but really smart though. More stuff like this please!

1) Dark mode would be a nice welcome edition, especially if you’re managing a busy station which practically needs to be handled mostly around the clock, so having this as an option to select in the settings as a theme changer would lessen the strain on the eyes in the evening time when we particularly do music database management, scheduling changes, uploading pre-recorded shows, etc.

2) The metadata can sometimes be hit or miss, but in our experience, it’s been thankfully more hit than miss. Radio.co are working hard on a solution to fix this since a small number of stations including ours have been affected. (we’ll re-edit this part of the review to reflect when that solution is eventually implemented) It’s basically when the presenter’s promo show picture doesn’t get displayed when that show has connected to the station & still displaying the previous show’s picture metadata. The feedback we brought to Radio.co about this is have the live show that connects next on the schedule to always take priority even if the previous live show finishes over their set programming time. This way, it entirely avoids having to reset your station off & back on-air again to get the next metadata to show up correctly especially because it’ll affect what’s displayed in the apps too. But in that space of time when you’ve done that, you could potentially have lost listeners or have an annoyed presenter to deal with when you shouldn’t have to which can lead to losing talent because they’re relying on you to fix these minor issues. The solution we have on our station for the moment while Radio.co are trying to fix this metadata issue, is by telling our presenters to finish their shows before the next hour begins. This depends on how long of a show your own presenters are doing but ours do 2hr show slots & are required to finish between 1hr 59mins to just before the next hour begins so that the metadata has enough time to change over to the next show’s promo picture when the that presenter connects to the station at their scheduled programming time.

3) This is more of a “what we want to see added that would be really cool to have” sort of thing & that’s having a Tweet Deck style social media posting suite which would be extremely convenient to have since it’ll negate having to sign up to anywhere else that provides that service or having to laboriously do it yourself on the presenter’s behalf if they don’t have access to the station’s social accounts to do it themselves. Having a dedicated suite for this would alleviate so much grind because if you’re already working on the dashboard then it’s handy to have something like that in the same place rather than having to switch over to another tab where your Tweet Deck work is. One less tab open, means less tab clutter, especially if you’re trying to work in a very efficient way to get posts out on time.

4) Again, this is more of a “what we want to see added that would be really cool to have” sort of thing & that’s a Myriad style playout suite where you can essentially broadcast from the dashboard instead of having to use other play out style software such as Virtual DJ or whatever else. The dashboard already gives an option to build playlists so why not go the extra mile so to speak & add in a proper broadcasting section akin to Myriad? It could be possible that Radio.co are working on something similar that they can implement as their own special something that’s not too far removed from what people have used elsewhere in terms of playout software brands. Put it this way, it would be an ultimate all-in-one package where you have just one place to go for practically everything.

5) Some sort of proper ducking feature would be nice since it doesn’t seem to work even when you use a music play-out software like Virtual DJ. It should automatically duck when a presenter talks, but the talk still gets drowned out by the music even though the setting for ducking is set originally to 80%. We’re getting around this by doing it the classic manual way on our Rodecaster Pro. It’s not a huge gripe but could be looked at as something to improve so that it can smartly recognize when a presenter’s talking while another audio channel is active despite whatever music playout software from your PC/laptop that you’re using.

6) It would be cool to see a visual roadmap of the upcoming developments & improvements of the platform just so it gives clients like us an outlook of features that could be coming as something to look forward to or even plan ahead for that can impact your station in a positive way.

7) You have to get used to talking with Radio.co’s support team via their online chat & through emails. There’s no number to call despite the fact that it’s always nice to actually speak to someone regarding issues. But again, it’s not huge a gripe because we understand why they want to have things like this because it avoids a needless call centre type of system so that they can spend their time more productively on improving every facet of the platform. And besides, while you’re waiting on them to reply back, you can just get on with your work in the meantime & that’s what we do, which isn’t a problem for us.

We’ve been with Radio.co for just over a year now & we’ve left a review to this point on purpose because, firstly, we genuinely have enjoyed using this cloud-based service platform. And secondly, we wanted to properly experience all facets of it so that if anyone else that’s sitting on the fence waiting to decide before committing or simply wants to join but needs to research to see if Radio.co is a right fit for them, then at least our comprehensive in-depth experience will give them a better understanding of what it’s honestly like to use & be a client of on this type of broadcasting brand.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first – Radio.co is a very good option to consider but isn’t a cheap one. Especially because you’re only going to get the most out of it by having the pro-level features. This really caters for someone or a team that are hugely passionate about everything to do with Radio & are also ambitious enough to put in enough hard work so that their station will eventually become a self-sustainable business that they can recoup back what they pay out in expenses to use this cloud-based service. Besides, this platform is capable & powerful enough to fulfil that kind of need & encourage those kinds of highly motivated & driven individuals or teams to go onto succeed enough that they can potentially compete or offer something genuinely different to what’s already available out there even on regional & national level.

Radio.co is also really ideal for educational institutions & youth-based organizations that are comfortably funded enough that they won’t have trouble getting a source of income to keep their radio project going. That’s why it’s perfect for student radio type development, where candidates are going to start off as newcomers to the world of Radio as well as gaining useful transferable skills that they can take into other media-based industries after they graduate.

Apart from that, there’s nothing else that we can point out as a negative or a frustrating annoyance. The team behind Radio.co have truly built something special & we’re glad to be here at the right moment since launching the station in November 2020. It’s the best place to be & it’s really enjoyable to use the platform from our perspective. Hence why we’ve given it a fair 4/5 rating (4.5 if we could, but Trustpilot doesn’t do half incremental on their ratings) because it’s not totally perfect, but then again, what cloud-based service is? As long as 9/10 things work on a regular basis then it’s nothing to grumble about since the minor things don’t have any impact on the overall experience. We’re just thankful that we’ve only ever had a small handful of incidents, but they’ve been rectified by the support team relatively within the same conversation when you bring up those issues with them.

Besides, if you’re looking for the best all-round package for all your radio broadcasting needs, then we highly recommend Radio.co. Again, it’s not the cheapest option since you need to pay for the premium level pro features to get the most out of it because on the basic plan, you may feel it will end up feeling restrictive. The extra features are worth paying that bit extra for, which can benefit your station. For us personally, having our own app was essential in tapping into a wide-ranging audience that carry around portable devices like smartphones, tablets, etc. Online stations rely & thrive through those types of devices that everyone carries on them as an essential & important item. Therefore, if that kind of reliance is anything to go by, then the digital platform is only going to continue to grow & offer far more alternative variety over traditional FM/AM/DAB stations simply because online radio is surprisingly a convenient place for people to access easily as well since it can cater better towards their taste in music.

The platform is incredibly user friendly, especially for beginners. It is very quick to get started, and the desktop platform is excellent and not very load heavy. Its relatively easy to add to your domain, too. With smart speaker and app capability it increases coverage.

The price, on top of licensing can quickly add up. Optional extras also increase cost which without monetising can be quite a cost burden.

make sure you consider local licensing or using unlicensed music during your broadcasts.

Creating a unified voice across lockdown for friends, colleagues and family.

What I like the most is the possibility of listening to the radio live, listening to the best stations.

Requires a good internet connection to be stable communication with radio stations

What I do not like is that registration is quite complicated, as well as being very expensive to register

Other users should consider the cost of registration and use of Radio.co, since it is very high

It has been very useful, as well as being very fun to use. It has allowed me to listen to the best stations from anywhere only with an internet connection

It's a very stable broadcasting platform.

Really bad technical support. It is not cheap, so you expect something else than "We do understand the frustration and we are working diligently at resolving the longstanding issue" every single month and not resolving the issue.

Considering that this is not a cheap service, you need to check all your alternatives before hire Radio.co. If you are lucky, things will be going well and you will be able to work with no problems. But in our case, we are waiting for a solution to a technical issue for six months and the answers are the same: "we are aware.. we are working on it...".

It is very stable. Most of the alternative platforms have continuous downtime periods of time.

We thought that this was going to be a great platform. Easy to use and all the right features. That is the case BUT....it is impossible to do smooth transitions between recorded shows. I have spent a year communicating with them and trying work arounds. The only one that would work would involve every show being 1 hour and 20 seconds long so putting the whole schedule another 20 seconds behind after each show. Their reaction is this.........I appreciate this is frustrating, but as Pete mentioned, the above workaround is the best way at this current time.I am sorry for that, but it's something we can look in to as part of our future product improvements.

After one year that is the best they can say.

So look at other companies.

Unable to do smooth transitions between recorded shows.

They are not resolving the problems.