Open a streaming URL prior to scheduled recording

In order to schedule streaming radio, the day of week must be specified, along with the URL of the player. It should also be possible to exit the URL to stop the stream, and be ready to open another player URL and start another scheduled recording. I currently do this with old software called Cybercorder. The only thing it cannot do is to exit the URL, but I get around this by using the Chrome browser with an add-on called Tab Wrangler. After a scheduled recording, I have set up another very short recording with the URL of Google. It opens a new tab, and a minute later, Tab Wrangler closes the now unused tab of the player. Of course, Google has no audio player, so the stream has been stopped, and I'm free to start another scheduled recording at another URL, without having two players open at once, which would record garbage. It would be so much easier if the streaming recorder could simply close the browser. It would also be great if the recorder could verify that audio is present, and send an email (in order to send a text message) if a player is not working when a recording is scheduled. I currently use the Pira CZ Silence Detector to achieve that function, but of course it has no way of knowing if a recording is over, and the silence is desirable.