From hip hop heads to evangelist radio preachers via whale song symphonies. Net radio surfers won't be surprised to hear that the motivations behind broadcasting online are almost as diverse as the channels available.

Charles Smith, Radio Manager at London Live and Direct says : "It's about exposure for up and coming DJ's - more about trying to help the community rather than make money from it." Similarly, Interface's Eezee-E sees an opportunity to help new artists: "We get a lot of emails from small time producers who can't afford to press their first records, offering their tunes, which then go to all our DJ's and they can choose to play it."

Virgin Radio is consistently among Arbitron's top webcasting stations worldwide, with about 300,000 unique listeners a month. Managing Editor of New Media, James Cridland says it is very much part of their overall strategy: "Virgin Radio is a national music station on medium wave, and actually most people in terms of choosing a station will move about on FM, not MW, so the Internet we find very useful in encouraging trial among listeners."

Torin Douglas, BBC New Media Correspondent also sees the net as an opportunity: "BBC7 and our new digital stations are partially being broadcast on DAB, but you can get a much bigger audience through satellite and the web - it's all becoming blurred, but it means the BBC can extend the range of its services and reach a slightly more niche market than it would otherwise."

Others are simply frustrated with regulation of traditional media, such as Tony Gosling of Bristol Broadband Collective: "We'd much rather have a licence, but the licensing authorities are just useless - they are not interested unless you are an established London based multi-generational company. Internet Radio is an opportunity for providing a platform for voices that are just not being heard - that are in fact being deliberately shut out buy the mainstream media."