A method and apparatus are provided for generating a personalized radio channel playlist by simultaneously buffering tracks from multiple received channels from one or more source streams and selectively playing back tracks from the buffered channels. Navigation tools permit users to skip buffered songs in their playlist (e.g., skip forward and backward). Users can specify favorite channels for building personal playlists, or multiple default playlist channels can be provided (e.g., by genre). Thumbs up/down buttons on the radio receiver permit entering a song or artist being played back into a favorites list that is used to search all channels for matches or a banned list used to block songs from future playlists. A matched channel carrying the favorite can be added to a playlist. Segments on the playlist can be played back in full or truncated to facilitate preview of playlist segments.