No radio stations have ever played the music I'm looking for so no, this doesn't work for me at all. The majority of stations play top 40, or top R&B/Urban (no idea what the PC description is), top country, class rock. Maybe if you live in LA or NYC there are some other stations with more eclectic selections like say KCRW in LA but I have no interest in what they play.
it is available from outside the UK on the BBC website. alternatively, most (all?) of the BBC radio stream URLs can be found here [1], and consumed with e.g VLC
While great radio stations solve the issue of finding new music, finding great radio stations is even harder than finding new music.
I've been lucky to have moved a few times and discovered some great local radio stations along the way. They still make up the larger part of new music I discover. But I agree, mainstream stations are very unlikely to do this for you, and there's currently no good way to discover good radio stations.
I've discovered so many great artists through FIP, the greatest thing about this one is the themed channels, you're almost guaranteed to always find something good to listen to.
public / college/ indie stations. They usually have online streaming. For all the digging I've done online, radio yields the most unexpected, unheard results. Not always what you want, but still, interesting. Irreplaceable.
