Now 80s

This is the stream named for the eighties, one of two the directory lists in the United Kingdom under a single name where each entry takes a decade. The decade is the difference between them and there is no other.

The 1980s corner of the United Kingdom's dial is two stations deep in this snapshot. Small clusters like that are usually the most rewarding thing on a country page, because they are what the national broadcasters at the top of the list are not.

The stream is encoded at 1020 kbps, more than twice the 128 kbps median for the United Kingdom. Bitrate is the one quality figure the public directory carries, and on this entry it is unambiguous.

The stream is AACH264, which is unusual anywhere: the United Kingdom's listing is dominated by MP3. Formats outside the common three are typically a deliberate choice by a broadcaster who cares about the encoding chain, and they are also the ones most likely to give a browser trouble.

Now 80s publishes an HLS stream. That is a modern and perfectly good way to broadcast, and it is also why the button on this page may not start it: HLS needs a player that can read a playlist and fetch segments, which a browser audio tag does not do on its own.