The Infinite Dial

How do you get 766 streaming radio stations on one player?

You can see Clear Channel's answer to that challenge at its new portal, currently in Beta, IHeartMusic.com, where CC follows Citadel and CBS in allowing streamies to punch from one station to another.

Unlike the Citadel and recent CBS players, choosing a different radio station takes you away from the player to a list of available station streams, Websites and playlists. That full list is 77 screens, although you can easily sort by format or location. Still, the Top 40 list alone is nine screens. That's a lot of choice and right now there's no additional guidance on which Kiss is which, or whether somebody casually scrolling through the Classic Hits pages might want the older skewing WOKY Milwaukee or its newer leaning and very different sister WRIT. (To be fair, you don't get that now from Citadel or CBS--but it's not quite the same dizzying array of choice to make your way through.)

Right now, the link to "browse 750+ radio stations" is only available on CC's new generation players, the ones rolled out mostly in larger markets that also tie into the stations' social networking site. If you go from Urban WGCI Chicago to, say, Top 40 WKSI Winchester, Va., you'll have to take yourself back to the program guide to switch stations again after that. The site does prominently feature eRockster.com, CC's recent national Indie Rock rollout.