FM Radio, Live FM, Live radio

Review by eFreeware

The pitch here is breadth: a single tuner that reaches both AM and FM stations, with thousands of local US feeds sitting alongside a much larger international catalog. That combination is the most distinctive thing about FM Radio, and it shapes everything else the app does.

It is free to install and supported by ads, with in-app purchases also offered. If you want local news, sports coverage, talk programming or music radio without hunting through separate apps for each, this is built for that job. The 4.3 average from more than 27,000 ratings suggests a fair number of listeners have settled into it.

I'll look at what the app actually does across its main jobs: finding stations, listening through the day, and handling playback in a car. Then I'll cover what the developer says about setup, who the app fits best, and whether it earns a place on your phone.

Finding a station without scrolling forever

The catalog is the headline feature. The developer puts the US count at over 20,000 stations and the worldwide figure at more than 50,000, which is a lot of ground to cover for a free app. Major markets are represented by name: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston and Atlanta, among others. So listeners in those areas can likely get their local news, traffic, weather and sports.

Search is where a catalog this size lives or dies, and the app lets you look stations up by name, genre, tag or location. That last option matters if you have moved away from a city and still want its broadcasts. Favorites then save whatever you land on for quick access later, so the stations you actually listen to don't get buried under the ones you don't.

The named examples give a sense of the range: FOX News, WSKQ La Mega 97.9, WHTZ Z100, WSCR 670 AM The Score, WCBS 880, 1010 WINS, Jazz24, BBC World Service, ESPN Radio and WQHT Hot 97 FM. Music genres run from pop, rock and hip hop to country, jazz, classical, oldies and holiday stations. News, talk and sports sit alongside them, so the app is not purely a music player.

What appeals to me about this arrangement is that AM gets equal billing. Sports and talk radio still live largely on AM in the US, and plenty of tuner apps treat it as an afterthought. Here both bands are supported, and the search tools apply to either.

Listening through the day, from alarm to lights out

Two features turn the app from a station directory into something you keep open. The alarm clock wakes you to a station you choose, which is a familiar way to start a morning with news or music rather than a default tone. The sleep timer does the opposite at the other end of the day: playback stops automatically at a time you set, so you can drift off to live radio without leaving it running.

Recording is the third piece. You can capture live broadcasts, whether that is a show, a music block or a talk program, and listen again later. For anyone whose schedule doesn't line up with a favorite program, that is the difference between catching it and missing it. It is also the feature I'd expect to be used least often, simply because most radio listening happens in the moment.

Home screen widgets round this out. They let you open the app, control playback and reach favorite stations without digging through menus, which suits the way radio is usually consumed: briefly, while doing something else. The developer describes the design as clean and elegant, and the widget support suggests the app is meant to be operated in seconds rather than minutes.

Playback itself is kept simple, with controls to start and stop a station. The app keeps the player simple, which suits radio.

Built for the driver's seat

Car use gets explicit attention. Car Mode presents a driving-friendly interface intended for easier and safer operation on the road, and the app also supports Android Auto for in-car listening. If your radio habit is mostly a commute or long highway drives, those two features matter more than anything else in the catalog.

The combination is sensible: Android Auto puts the app on the car's display, while Car Mode covers the case where you are running it on the phone itself. Between them, the app is positioned for people who listen while driving rather than while sitting at a desk.

I'd expect this to be the strongest argument for installing FM Radio on a phone that lives in a dashboard mount. A tuner that is awkward to operate while parked is a tuner you stop using, and the developer has clearly thought about that scenario.

What you need before you start listening

FM Radio is free to download and runs on Android, with ads and in-app purchases present. The app was released in April 2021 and has been updated since, most recently in August 2026.

The app is rated for Everyone, so there is nothing in the content rating to work around.

Install it, search for something, and start listening is the shape of it.

Where this fits and where it doesn't

This is a good fit for someone who wants one place for local US radio and international stations, particularly if news, sports and talk are as important as music. The named stations lean heavily toward American broadcasting, and the location search makes it easy to stay tied to a city you no longer live in. Drivers get the most out of it, thanks to Car Mode and Android Auto.

It also suits listeners who like leaving the radio on in the background. The sleep timer, alarm and widgets all point to that habit, and recording covers the programs you can't be there for.

The app is narrower than a general music service. It plays live radio, so what you hear is what is being broadcast, and the experience depends on the stations in the catalog rather than on anything you choose to play. Ads and in-app purchases are part of the free version, which is worth factoring in if you plan to listen for hours at a time.

A tuner worth keeping in the car

FM Radio does one job and does it broadly: it puts a very large catalog of live AM and FM stations behind a search box, then adds the small features that make radio usable day to day. The alarm, sleep timer, recording and widgets are not glamorous, but they are exactly what a listener needs, and Car Mode with Android Auto support makes the driving case properly.

If you want live radio from US cities and beyond in a single app, this is a reasonable place to start, especially if most of your listening happens behind the wheel.