Built an AI news radio. 75+ channels, listened in 50+ countries, $225/month just on TTS.
Started Tera FM as a simple idea: what if you could listen to your news feed instead of doom-scrolling it?
Three and half months in, here's where we are:
- 75+ channels live:- BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, Hacker News, TechCrunch, Al Jazeera and more
- Listeners in more than 50 countries (as per VA)
- Added curated channels we write by hand (actually hired a writer for this) - Daily Stoic, Morning Focus, Heartbreak Healing, Calm Tech Brief and others. One episode per day, narrated with premium TTS
- Built on Next.js + Claude (AI summarisation) + Google TTS (approx $225 a month charges)
The hardest part hasn't been the tech. It's content at scale. We batch-generate news audio fine, but the curated channels - the ones people actually come back for takes real writing.
What's next: adding more news channels + more curated channels, better personalisation, and figuring out distribution ("the hardest part"). I
Totally free right now - no sign-up needed. Just go to tera.fm and start listening.
One caveat-> there's a rate limit (10 requests/hour, 20/day) purely to keep the server bills sane. if you hit the limit- come back tomorrow.
if you tried it after reading this post, please spare a moment to leave your feedback...any suggestions help! I would especially like feedback on the quality of the curated channels.
