Static Podcast Discovery Radio

Best Practice Chicago

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About this app

Static is live radio for independent podcasts. Spin a dial and land in the middle of a show on one of nine hand-picked stations of indie podcasts, playing around the clock. Everyone tuned to a station hears the same moment, so podcast discovery feels like finding something great on the radio late at night, not scrolling a chart.

Most podcast apps hand you a search box, a top-100 chart and an algorithm. Static hands you a dial. The shows are independent podcasts picked by people: working journalists, oddball historians, field recordists, makers, organizers and late-night storytellers you'd never think to search for. We put real work into keeping corporate-owned and AI-generated shows off the dial, so what you find is small, singular and made by people.

THE STATIONS
- NEWS: reported journalism and audio documentary, no punditry
- LEARN: history podcasts, science, reported essays and criticism
- MAKE: workshop, repair, craft, fabrication and DIY
- UNITE: labor, tenant organizing, mutual aid and movement history
- WORK: lofi beats, smooth instrumentals and ambient sound for focus and study
- NATURE: birdsong, rain, water, weather and field recordings
- WEIRD: paranormal, UFOs, folklore, ghost stories and the fringe
- SLEEP: sleep stories, yoga nidra and brown noise for falling asleep
- SHEILA B: a hand-picked archive from freeform radio station WFMU

HOW IT WORKS
Open the app and spin. Each station is already playing, the way a radio station is, so you land mid-show instead of at the start of a menu. Turn the dial slowly and the stations crossfade into each other; let go and it settles on the one you landed on. There is nothing to set up: no account, no sign-up and no feed to train.

LISTEN TOGETHER, WITHOUT THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Because every listener on a station hears the same podcast episode at the same moment, Static works like a shared broadcast. You can see how many people are tuned in alongside you. No profiles, no comments, no followers.

KEEP WHAT YOU FIND
Heart any show to save it to your Faves. When you're ready, export your Faves as OPML and import them into the podcast app you already use, such as Pocket Casts, Overcast, Podcast Addict or Apple Podcasts, to subscribe for good. Static is a podcast discovery app that sends you home with the shows, not a walled garden that keeps them.

BUILT TO BE TOUCHED
A tactile, hand-printed risograph look and a physical dial you actually spin. Mute with a tap, share an episode you stumbled onto, and let the cover art fill the screen.

SHORT BULLETINS BETWEEN SHOWS
No subscription, no paywall. Some stations carry 30-second community bulletins between podcast episodes, from small businesses, organizers, individuals and the occasionally kooky. They never interrupt an episode: every show plays in full and unaltered, straight from the podcaster's own feed.

FOR INDIE PODCASTS
Every episode streams from the creator's own podcast feed, so your listening counts toward their show. Know an independent podcast that belongs on the dial? Suggest it at staticradio.app. Podcasters who'd rather not be included can opt out there too.

RUN BY ACTUAL PEOPLE
Static is a small, independent project based in Chicago, made by people who missed the feeling of finding something wonderful by accident.

Spin the dial and see what finds you.

What’s new

Smoother station changes: the station you leave no longer keeps playing after the wheel lands, the new one is ready sooner after a fling, and no more brief dip as it starts.