Report updated May 19, 2026
Police Scanner Radio & Fire
For local news enthusiasts, public safety observers, and individuals monitoring emergency activity in their area.
Police Scanner Radio & Fire is an established news app that is free with in-app purchases. With a 4.6/5 rating from 519.1K reviews, it shows polarized user reception. Users particularly appreciate clear and informative audio streams provide valuable local news and emergency awareness for listeners, though intrusive and persistent advertising patterns disrupt the listening experience and block core app functionality remains a common concern.
What is Police Scanner Radio & Fire?
Police Scanner Radio & Fire is a news and utility app that provides live emergency radio streaming for local news enthusiasts on iOS and Android.
Users hire this app for real-time situational awareness during local emergencies, replacing traditional radio hardware with a mobile-first, alert-driven experience.
Current Momentum
v2.6 · 2w ago
Active- Shipped user profile viewing via Clips
- Fixed area map and notification stability
Active Nemesis
Police Scanner: Fire Radio
By Guru Network Limited
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
NewsRating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User MoodAI-powered deep analysis surfacing high-signal insights. Still in beta, accuracy improves daily. For informational purposes only.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
How Is The App's Momentum Right Now?
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What Are The Key Features?
Push notifications triggered when specific scanner feeds exceed 2,000 listeners or Broadcastify alerts are posted
Tool to capture, save, and share segments of live scanner audio with the community
In-app chart defining common police and fire radio codes for listener context
How much does it cost?
- Free ad-supported access to all scanner feeds
Ad-supported model relies on high-volume listener traffic to monetize through inventory.
Who Built It?
Providing real-time public safety audio and breaking news alerts to keep communities informed during emergency events.
Portfolio
2
Apps
Who is GordonEdwards.net?
GordonEdwards.net LLC has established a dominant niche in the public safety audio space by focusing on a single, high-utility tool rather than a broad news portfolio. Their competitive advantage lies in a robust notification system triggered by listener spikes, which serves as a real-time proxy for breaking news events. The high update frequency and CarPlay integration suggest a strategic focus on technical reliability and mobile accessibility for a dedicated user base that relies on the app for situational awareness.
Who is GordonEdwards.net for?
- Public safety enthusiasts
- Local residents seeking real-time information on emergency services
- Breaking news
Portfolio momentum
Maintains an intense development pace with 12 updates in the last 6 months for its flagship title, ensuring high reliability for live audio streams.
What other apps does GordonEdwards.net make?
Scanner Radio - Police Scanner
What do users think recently?
High confidence · Latest 90 of 143 total reviews analyzed · Based on 143 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a mixed sentiment. Users appreciate clear and informative audio streams provide valuable local news and emergency awareness for listeners, but report intrusive and persistent advertising patterns disrupt the listening experience and block core app functionality.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
What is the competitive landscape for Police Scanner Radio & Fire?
How's The News Market?
How does it evolve in the News market?
The app maintains a #9 Free / #12 Grossing position in the US, holding the #9 slot for the current period. The gap between discovery and monetization signals that ad-intrusiveness is likely suppressing long-term revenue potential.
| Country | Category | Chart | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 US | News | iOSFree | #9 | |
| 🇵🇱 Poland | News | iOSFree | #28 | ▲9 |
The rivals identified
The Nemesis
Police Scanner: Fire Radio
★4.7 (159.9K)Guru Network Limited Inc.
📈With over 159,000 reviews and a high rating, this app serves the exact same niche of live emergency audio streaming as the target.
Head to Head
The target app must decide if it wants to be a general news hub or a specialized scanner tool; it should consider a 'Scanner-Only' mode to compete directly with this rival's focus.
What sets Police Scanner Radio & Fire apart
Integrates broader breaking news alerts alongside scanner audio to provide a more comprehensive safety context.
Offers a more diverse content ecosystem that keeps users engaged during periods of low scanner activity.
What's Police Scanner: Fire Radio's Edge
Delivers a more focused, low-latency audio experience specifically optimized for high-demand emergency monitoring scenarios.
Maintains a cleaner, specialized interface that avoids the feature bloat found in general news-integrated apps.
Contenders
Integrates real-time geospatial mapping of wildfires, providing visual context that audio-only scanners lack.
Employs a high-frequency update model that delivers critical safety information faster than traditional news outlets.
5-0 Radio Pro Police Scanner
★4.6 (82.3K)Smartest Apps LLC
⚡A long-standing direct competitor in the scanner niche with high update velocity and a massive legacy user base.
Maintains a massive, long-term database of global scanner feeds that exceeds most niche competitors.
Aggressive update cadence ensures compatibility with the latest iOS versions and hardware performance standards.
Police Scanner +
★4.5 (99.6K)Rego Apps
⚡Directly competes for the same emergency-monitoring audience with a similar feature set and long-term market presence.
Offers a simplified, lightweight interface that prioritizes immediate audio playback over complex news aggregation.
Provides a more traditional, radio-tuner style UX that appeals to legacy scanner hobbyists.
Peers
Leverages a massive, AI-driven local news aggregation engine that provides hyper-local updates beyond emergency audio.
Utilizes a social-first engagement model that encourages user-generated content and community reporting.
Provides professional, high-production-value video reporting that serves as a contrast to raw scanner audio.
Offers a global news perspective that shifts the user focus from local incidents to national headlines.
New Kids on the Block
Spotify for Creators
★4.8 (117.6K)Spotify
⚡High release velocity and platform backing make this an emerging threat in the audio-consumption space.
Provides robust, creator-focused audio tools that could easily pivot to include live-streaming capabilities.
Leverages Spotify's massive distribution network to rapidly capture new segments of the audio-listening market.
The outtake for Police Scanner Radio & Fire
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Breaking news alerts drive session frequency during high-interest events
- Audio clipping loop functions as a viral acquisition lever
- CarPlay integration extends usage to commute windows
Critical Frictions
- Ad-interruption of audio feeds causes high churn
- Unreliable feed availability erodes trust in safety utility
- Subscription conversion processes lack transparency
Growth Levers
- Geospatial mapping integration provides visual context
- B2B partnerships with local news for verified alerts
- Scanner-only mode to defend against niche rivals
Market Threats
- Ad-light competitors siphoning power users
- Platform policy changes regarding intrusive ad-blocking
- General news apps competing for attention during major events
What are the next best moves?
Implement silent ad formats because ad-interruption is the #1 complaint → reduce churn
Sentiment analysis identifies ad-interruption as the primary driver of negative feedback.
Trade-off: Pause the development of new social-sharing features — ad-retention has higher revenue impact.
Audit feed-buffering logic because unreliable access is the #2 complaint → increase session duration
User reviews frequently cite offline status and buffering as reasons for abandonment.
Trade-off: Delay the rollout of new UI themes — stability is critical for safety-tool perception.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's #9 chart rank is a liability, not an asset, because maintenance-mode at the top makes it more vulnerable to a single live-ops rival than a lower-ranked app.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Geospatial mapping (available in Watch Duty but missing here)
- Emergency-first, ad-free UI (available in Police Scanner: Fire Radio but missing here)
Key Takeaways
The app holds a strong discovery position, but aggressive ad-monetization is actively eroding the user base, so the PM must prioritize silent ad formats to stop churn before the #9 chart rank slips.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
The emergency-monitoring market is consolidating around high-reliability, ad-light experiences, leaving this app exposed. Maintenance-mode updates that fail to address ad-intrusiveness will accelerate churn to specialized rivals, so the PM must pivot to silent ad formats to protect the current chart position.
Persistent ad-blocking bugs in the latest update erode the daily active habit, which compounds the rating drag already visible on Android.
The gap between Free and Grossing rank suggests that current ad-monetization is actively suppressing the conversion of listeners into long-term revenue.