Digital Radio Stations

Digital Radio has been available in Britain for some time. It can be listened to through dedicated digital radios or through digital TV. Depending on which region of Britain you live in there is a vast choice of radio stations offering music to cater to all tastes.

New digital radio stations are constantly being added to those on offer. The following is an overview of some popular digital radio stations in Britain.

Smooth FM

Smooth FM is a fairly new radio station that specialises in playing relaxing music. Smooth FM started broadcasting form Salford in 2004 and is now part of the Guardian Media Group.

Smooth FM plays a variety of music from upbeat classic soul tunes to new, smooth pop music. The station doesn't have a fixed play list and usually plays modern, pop music during the day and jazz during the evenings.

In keeping with the station's slogan, "from 0-chilled in 60 seconds" Smooth FM is dedicated to relaxing its listeners. As well as playing soothing and relaxing music the station also has traffic and travel updates as well to help ease listener's minds while driving.

1 XTRA

1 XTRA is the BBC's dedicated urban music radio station. 1 XTRA broadcasts 24 hours a day bringing you the latest hip hop, drum n bass and reggae music.

1 XTRA has a broad selection of DJs with varied backgrounds from pirate radio and within the music industry. Hip hop mixes are popular with the latest exclusives from Britain and the rest of the world. During the day easy tunes and pop is played and in the evening more urban and a wider variety of music is played.

BBC Radio 5

Radio 5 is also known as Five Live, reporting news and sports. Radio 5 was originally launched on medium wave radio in 1990 and is now also available on digital radio.

As well as reporting on breaking news and sports reports Radio 5 also hosts phone in shows and sections on general interest. During the week radio 5's broadcast starts with the breakfast show from 6am until 9am. From 9am the phone in show is aired with listener's views on current topics. This is followed by an hour long news programme from 12 until 1pm.

In the afternoon an entertainment focused programme is on with interviews and news on new films and programmes with film reviews of new releases each Friday. In the evening sports coverage and the days news dominates often with commentary from live matches.