MAGAZINE
18,035 radios: a world tour, counted station by station
At the very moment you read these lines, 18’035 radio stations are listed on Terondo, spread across 259 countries and territories. We counted them one by one — literally: a small, patient machine queried the catalog country by country, at the polite pace of one query every three seconds, until it had an exact figure for each. Here is what this count tells us.
America speaks, Germany answers
Unsurprisingly, the United States leads with 2’275 stations — a radio landscape shaped by a century of local radio, college radio and community stations. The real surprise is right behind it: Germany has 1’948 radios, almost as many, despite having a population four times smaller. The explanation lies in its federal system: each Land funds its public broadcasters, and amateur web radio is an institution there.
France rounds out the top three with 804 stations, backed by its historic FM band and its network of community radio stations. Next come Mexico (699), the United Kingdom (685) and — surprisingly high — Greece, with 572 radios for a population of eleven million: proportionally, it may be the most radio-loving country in the world.
Forty-eight silences
At the other end of the ranking, 48 countries currently have no radio in the catalog. Some are tiny; others are simply poorly served by streaming — or their stations broadcast without a stable online stream. These 48 silences are our next frontier: if you know of a station broadcasting from one of these territories, each country’s page lets you tell us about it.
Why count?
Because a directory that claims «thousands of radios» without knowing exactly how many is no better than a promise. Terondo now displays measured counts, not estimates — the same philosophy as our online stream counter, which counts only what is actually playing. The figure will change: stations launch, others go dark, and we will repeat the count regularly at the same unhurried pace.
Happy listening — the globe on the homepage is waiting for you to set off on your first journey.