Jacaranda FM plays adult contemporary hit music from the 1980s, 1990s, and today, streaming live from Pretoria across South Africa's Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and North West regions. Press play on Radio Shuffle and it streams instantly, free, with no account or app download required.
Launched at midnight from a New Year's Eve party
The station went on air at midnight on January 1, 1986, launched live from a New Year's Eve celebration at Pretoria City Hall, according to its broadcast history. It emerged directly out of a major shakeup at the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which had just discontinued the long-running Springbok Radio and was restructuring its regional services. The new station took its name from the jacaranda tree, the purple-blossoming species so closely associated with Pretoria that the city itself is nicknamed Jacaranda City.
That nickname is well earned. Pretoria is now home to an estimated 70,000 jacaranda trees, which put on a roughly eight-week purple display across the city's streets each late spring, even though the species was imported from South America and is not native to South Africa at all, according to a history of the trees from the Heritage Portal.
From Radio Jacaranda to Jacaranda FM
The station itself went through several names as it evolved. It launched as Radio Jacaranda, upgraded to stereo transmission and became Jacaranda Stereo in 1990, shifted to Jacaranda 94-97 in 1994, and settled on Jacaranda 94.2 in 1997 when the station privatized. It now operates simply as Jacaranda FM under Kagiso Media, South Africa's largest Black-owned media company, alongside sister stations East Coast Radio, OFM, iGagasi 99.5FM, and Kaya FM. The station reaches roughly 2 million listeners a week, with a digital audience topping 1.1 million monthly users, and has carried presenters including Kieno Kammies, Martin Bester, and Elana Afrika-Bredenkamp over the years.
Listen free on Radio Shuffle
Jacaranda FM streams around the clock, and Radio Shuffle carries the feed live with nothing to install and no subscription required. Press play for adult contemporary hits from the city that turns purple every spring.