Internet Radio best bets
New music, jazz, world music, contemplative, spoken word
Brave New Waves with host Patti Schmidt is a four hour show broadcast live Monday -Friday 12am - 4am EST, so you can comfortably listen live on the West Coast.Britain's BBC has a plethora of great content, well organized, my favorites are Radio 3 for New Music, Fusion and Jazz, and Radio 4 for Book at Bedtime, Book of the Week and Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time. BBC World Service is famous for their news program, I skip the propaganda and go right for Off the Shelf, another excellent serial reading of leading classic or contemporary literature. My all-time favorite was Ben Kingsley reading George Orwell's "Animal Farm."
David Dye's World Cafe is an incredibly rich source of great jazz, world music, quality pop and David's excellent commentary and periodic musician interview.
WBEZ Chicago's This American Life with Ira Glass is widely available on NPR affiliates, but not always at convenient times, and it's truly a loss to miss an show. Fortunately the weekly show and a complete set of archives of the original and thought-provoking essays, interviews and monologues is available at This American Life's website.
Hearts of Space has also been widely syndicated on NPR, but unaccountably, my local affiliate doesn't carry this masterwork any longer, so I now listen by subscription