What is FindStream and how has it come into existence?

Behind FindStream were a few people madly in love with music & new technologies, desperate for making the world, i.e the web, a better place, and driven by the idea of creating a smart search system to locate all live media streams on air on the web. As a result of their efforts, the most comprehensive base of FM & Internet streaming radio stations has been built. And alongside to spotting the majority of all radio broadcasts, this team developed an algorithm to scan the music content inside the stream, thus knowing for a fact what is playing any minute on any station broadcasting from any part of the world. This is how FindStream has come into being.

How does it work?

Today, FindStream acts as radio airplay broadcast monitoring service which tracks radio airplay of songs on more than 30 000 radio stations.

Monitored panel includes terrestrial radio streams, as well as big and small independently broadcasted Internet-only radio stations from 73 countries worldwide. This meticulously crafted mix provides for an efficient detection and reporting of millions of titles played on the radio thusbuilding all-round picture of ever-changing music world.

What makes the technology special?

Music data & their intelligent analysis form the core of the FindStream technological know-how. Our expertise is based on a system of automatic live radio stream search that crawls the web and performs careful analysis of found streams. The ability to normalize music meta data inside the stream, quickly generate airplay report on any artist or even build a profound analytical forecast based on the broadcasting history makes the technology behind FindStream almost incomparable.

Due to constant monitoring of web broadcasting sources and database growth FindStream easily spots even newly appeared music content & opens up a new source for music search & discovery.

What are the benefits of using FindStream?

As a monitoring service, FindStream is about empowering musicians by offering them a smart tool to track, rank, and better promote music using by far the most popular source for music consumption – broadcast radio.

There are many aspects to FindStream that make it appealing to music pros, like an ever-expanding database, variety of monitored stations & reported parameters. This profound exploration of radio landscape allows us to built up an unparalleled music discovery & recommendation engine that rests on the opinion of thousands savvy music pros – radio DJ & programming directors.

With all the power that streaming platforms offers in terms of music discovery & recommendation, average music fans still have a very distinct feel to a professionally curated music experience provided by radio DJs. Their extensive music knowledge & ability to carefully piece tracks together bring out an amazing user experience that not a single even the most sophisticated algorithm can deliver.

How can it help musicians with their radio performances?

Broadcast radio is still by far the most popular audio platform, and clear understanding of the radio music world & your place there is vital for luring the audience & succeeding in a highly challenging music industry. And this is where FindStream comes in very handy.

Apart from handling real-time monitoring of regional copyright distribution across the global radios & tracking royalties due for each broadcasted title, FindStream gives musicians an exciting marketing tool that easily measures & analyzes their current popularity on the radio waves, spot the most active broadcasters & recommends the best way to improve the artist’s presence on the radio, plan concerts & marketing campaigns.

How do you want FindStream to develop? What are the future plans?

We at FindStream are very passionate about highlighting the diversity & quality of broadcast radio content, and we are looking at ways to showcase the benefits of thoughtful curation of perfect playlists as opposed to technologically created algorithm streaming services provide.  We also plan to expand our monitored panel to cover all radio stations on the globe, so as not a single airplay is hidden.

Music isn’t just about job — it’s an important part of our life. And our goal is to turn FindStream into a single source of radio trends & music discovery, a tool for music pros to action the data & make the best of radio performance. A tall order, though for us it’s one worth delivering on.

by Sara Shirazi