14 DAY TRIAL // American sports radio network ESPN Radio is now offering its live streaming services featuring the same content beamed out to terrestrial stations via iTunes Radio. NPR stations are also available starting today.
Confirmed by users of iTunes Radio in the United States, the ESPN Radio channel is essentially a live stream of the same sports content getting sent out to terrestrial radio stations around the country.
For those who are unfamiliar with the network, it airs a regular schedule of daily and weekly sports programming, including live coverage of major sports events, such as Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, Bowl Championship Series, and Championship Week games.
Broadcast to hundreds of affiliate stations, ESPN Radio is also available to subscribers of Sirius XM Satellite Radio in the United States and Canada.
“Starting today, sports fans can listen to ESPN Radio talk shows and events on iTunes Radio available on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, iTunes on Mac and Windows, and Apple TV,” the network announces in a blog post. “ESPN Radio is the first sports content available on iTunes Radio.”
The network says it wants to bring expanded local station content to its listeners in the future and for that it is working directly with Apple. Podcasts and on-demand content from ESPN will continue to be available on the iTunes Store.
The ESPN Radio station will offer listeners “the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Major League Baseball including the playoffs and World Series, season-long college football, culminating with the College Football Playoff, US Open Golf, and college basketball,” according to the announcement.
ESPN Radio’s broadcast of the Atlanta Braves versus the Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball matchup will be the first live sporting event on iTunes Radio.
“We are thrilled to make our industry-leading sports talk and championship play-by-play content available to fans via iTunes Radio,” adds Traug Keller, senior vice president, ESPN production business divisions. “And we are excited to partner with Apple to expand our digital reach. Our fans can look forward to expanded ESPN Audio offerings on both the national and local sports levels in the future.”
Also, as of today dozens of NPR stations can be found on iTunes Radio, according to tipsters speaking to AppleInsider. NPR is a media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. It’s membership-based and it’s non-profit.
iTunes Radio is limited to very few countries today but is expected to gradually expand to many more countries, as was the case with iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match.