iHeartRadio for Google TV

Review by eFreeware

If you want live radio and podcasts playing on the television in your living room, iHeartRadio for Google TV is built for exactly that. It is a free app from iHeartMedia that pulls together thousands of AM and FM stations, a large podcast catalog and curated music playlists into one place, and it has been on Google Play since June 2014, with over a million installs.

The appeal is the breadth of what sits behind one icon. Rather than switching between a radio tuner, a podcast player and a music service, you get local stations from your own city alongside stations from elsewhere, plus shows and playlists, all in the same app. For a household that already treats the TV as the main screen, that combination is the reason to install it.

It is worth setting expectations early: this is a free app supported by advertising, with paid tiers available through in-app purchases, and the average rating sits at 3.6 from 360 ratings. That is a middling score, and it tells you this is a broad, convenient service rather than a polished premium one.

Live stations from your city and well beyond it

The core of the app is live radio. The developer says you can find thousands of local AM and FM stations near you, and also tune into stations from cities around the world. That second part is the more interesting one for a TV app, because it turns the set into a window onto radio from places you do not live in.

The programming on offer is not just music. Its content spans breaking news, sports, talk and comedy, and sports stations such as ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio and FNTSY Sports Radio are among the options. Sports discussion covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA, soccer, golf and tennis, so a game or a tournament can sit in the background while you do something else.

Because these are broadcast stations, what you get is whatever is airing at that moment. There is no picking a track or skipping ahead, which is the nature of live radio rather than a shortcoming of this particular app. If you like the idea of turning something on and letting it run, that model works well on a television.

Podcasts, downloads and playback speed

Podcasts are the other half of the app, and the catalog is drawn from a long list of providers: NPR, Gimlet, How Stuff Works, ESPN Podcasts, Big Money Players Network, TED and Wondery, along with shows fronted by personalities such as Ron Burgundy, Anna Faris, Colin Cowherd, Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Bobby Bones, Dax Shepard and Chelsea Handler. Whatever your taste in interview shows, sports talk or comedy, there is likely something here for you.

The player covers the basics well. Favorite shows can be followed, and episodes kept on an Android device for offline playback. Playback speed can be set to 0.5x, 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x or 2x, which is useful for anyone who prefers to move through a long interview or news show faster.

Discovery is handled partly by charts. The app includes a Top 100 chart of popular and trending shows that refreshes every Monday, giving you a rotating list to browse when you do not have a specific program in mind. On a TV screen, that kind of chart works better than searching, because you can scan it from across the room.

Playlists, artist stations and a weekly mixtape

Beyond live radio and shows, the app carries thousands of hand-curated playlists sorted by mood, activity, decade and genre. That structure is helpful when you know the shape of what you want, such as something calm, something for a workout or something from a particular era, without knowing which song to ask for.

There is also Your Weekly Mixtape, described as a weekly selection built from the music you love and the music you are listening to at the time, refreshed every Monday with a new set of tracks. Alongside it sits My Favorites Radio, a free personalized station that gathers the songs you have marked as favorites into one place.

If you prefer to start from an artist, the app lets you build personalized stations from a library of millions of songs across genres including country, Top 40, pop, hip hop, R&B, EDM, rock, alternative, classical, indie, folk, gospel, Christian and dance. These artist stations behave like radio rather than an on-demand catalog, which keeps the listening experience consistent with the rest of the app.

What the paid tiers add, and what the free version asks of you

The free version is supported by advertising, and two premium options, iHeartRadio Plus and iHeartRadio All Access, come with a 30-day free trial that can be canceled at any time. The developer lists several benefits for subscribers: hundreds of broadcast stations streamed without commercials, ad-free playlists and artist stations, on-demand search and playback of songs, albums and playlists, the ability to save and replay a song heard on the radio, no skip limit, music downloads for offline listening and unlimited personalized playlists.

Those features are pitched as the way to take control of your listening, and the on-demand and replay options are the clearest difference from the free experience, where stations and playlists are the main way in. Whether the subscription is worth it depends on how much you mind hearing commercials and how often you want a specific song rather than a stream.

The practical requirements are modest. You need an Android TV or Google TV device and an internet connection for streaming, while downloaded podcast episodes can be played without Wi-Fi. The app is rated for Everyone, and it works across phones, tablets, Wear OS and Chromecast as well as the TV.

A good fit for background listening on the big screen

I would expect this app to suit households that keep the television on for company: people who want a local station playing while they cook, sports talk during a game, or a podcast running while they fold laundry. The live-radio model and the curated playlists both lend themselves to that, because you can start something without deciding on a specific track.

It also fits listeners who like radio from other places. Being able to pull up stations from cities around the world is a genuine draw for anyone curious about how a region sounds, or for people who have moved away and want a familiar station from home.

The people most likely to be disappointed are those who want a full on-demand music service on the TV. The free experience is built around stations and playlists; searching for and playing a particular song, replaying a track from the radio and skipping without limit are premium features. If your goal is to call up any album whenever you want, the free app will not behave that way.

The 3.6 average from 360 ratings is worth weighing as well. It suggests a service that many people find useful but that does not delight everyone, which is consistent with a free, ad-supported app that has been around since 2014 and was last updated in January 2026.

A free way to put radio and podcasts on your TV

iHeartRadio for Google TV is a sensible install if you want live stations, podcasts and ready-made playlists on a television without paying anything up front. The combination of local AM and FM radio, international stations, a wide podcast catalog with downloads and speed controls, and curated music for different moods covers a lot of listening ground in one app.

You will hear advertising on the free version, some of the most flexible features sit behind the Plus and All Access subscriptions, and the app is oriented toward stations and playlists rather than on-demand albums. The 3.6 rating from 360 ratings suggests you should go in expecting convenience rather than polish.

If you want something playing in the background on the biggest screen in the house, and you are happy with radio-style listening, this is a straightforward choice. If you need to pick exact songs on demand, the subscription tiers are where that lives.