Broadcast Atlas

About the project

A map, not a broadcaster.

Broadcast Atlas is a community-oriented directory of intentionally public live television, radio, cameras, events, and data feeds.

Why I built it, and how it works

I’ve loved the IPTV-org project for years and always wanted a good web interface for it, so I built one. I use it every day (I watch a lot of news). I made it for myself first, but it’s built so that the more people use it, the better it gets.

Channels are sorted by popularity. Popularity just means how much people watch: a small counter adds a minute to a channel for every minute it plays with the sound on. Counts are worldwide; pick a country (or let us guess it) to see that country’s channels, most watched first. Channels nobody has watched yet come after.

We don’t keep your IP address. When you visit, your country is worked out from your address, and only the two-letter country code is saved. (Like any website, the web server’s own logs see addresses for a while; they’re deleted after 14 days.)

Top 100 is exactly that: the 100 most-watched channels in the world right now.

You don’t need an account. If you make one, you can thumb channels up to keep them on top and thumb them down to sink them. Your list then goes:

  1. Channels you thumbed up, most watched first
  2. Everything else, most watched first, then the ones nobody has watched yet
  3. Channels you thumbed down, at the bottom

Filters. Choose a country, a type (TV, radio, cameras and more) or a category. The full channel directory adds search, language and picture quality, and can export whatever you’ve filtered as an .m3u playlist (up to 60 channels) for your own player.

Bots keep it fresh. Every day one bot looks for new streams: it re-reads IPTV-org and Radio Browser and checks broadcasters’ own websites for official streams. Another checks the listed streams four times a day, so every stream gets checked at least weekly. A stream that keeps failing is hidden, not deleted, and comes back if it starts working again.

Android TV. Download the app, the Couch Potato Edition with every channel, from the Android TV page. I built and tested it on my Nvidia Shield Pro, but it should run on any Android TV or Google TV box with Android 7 or newer, and on Fire TV through the Downloader app. A Google Play version is in testing.

Community Stream Boost. With an account you can switch on stream sharing: people watching the same channel share pieces of the stream with each other, which could help keep a struggling stream going. It’s off by default, because people sharing a stream can see each other’s IP address, and it only helps once enough people watch the same thing at once. It may be pie in the sky, but it’s there.

Feedback is welcome at info@broadcastatlas.com. Happy streaming!

Writing about Broadcast Atlas? The Press kit has descriptions to copy, key facts, screenshots and logos.

Direct-source architecture

Broadcast Atlas provides metadata and source selection only. It never proxies, relays, records, restreams, or transcodes media. Your browser or external player connects directly to the listed operator’s host.

Catalog provenance

Television records are imported from IPTV-org and retain their upstream identifiers, plus official streams found on broadcasters’ own websites. Radio stations come from Radio Browser. Public cameras and other unusual feeds are added only from reviewed operator-published catalogs with an official public page, explicit provenance, and independent suppression controls. A reachable URL alone does not prove authorization or endorsement.

Sources and thanks

Broadcast Atlas exists thanks to these open projects and public agencies. Thank you.

← Broadcast Atlas home