NPO Radio 5 streams music from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s alongside evergreen hits and news updates, live from the Netherlands. Press play on Radio Shuffle and it streams instantly, free, with no account or app download required.
Built for the audiences other stations skipped
The station now known as NPO Radio 5 began life as Hilversum 5 on October 2, 1983, before being renamed Radio 5 on December 1, 1985, according to the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's history of the station. It launched as a spoken-word channel with an explicitly broad mandate, built to serve seniors, women, immigrants, farmers, students, and other audiences that the Netherlands' mainstream public stations were not directly programming for, alongside coverage of arts, culture, religion, and science.
From spoken word to nostalgia
The station's identity shifted substantially over the following decades. By the time it took its current name, NPO Radio 5, in August 2014, the schedule had moved toward "muziek uit de jaren 60, 70, 80 en de muziek van nu," music from the 60s, 70s and 80s plus contemporary tracks, turning a channel built for informational programming into one of Dutch public radio's main homes for nostalgia listening.
A national countdown built entirely by listeners
That shift produced one of Dutch radio's more durable annual traditions. Since November 2008, NPO Radio 5 has aired the Evergreen Top 1000, a listener-voted countdown of the most beloved evergreens, broadcast across a full week from 6am to 8pm and later adapted into a companion television program on NPO 1 featuring classic music videos and behind-the-song stories. The event draws heavily on 1960s and 1970s hits, giving Dutch listeners a chance to shape the soundtrack of their own year rather than have it handed down by a programmer.
Listen free on Radio Shuffle
NPO Radio 5 streams around the clock, and Radio Shuffle carries the feed live with nothing to install and no subscription required. Press play for decades of Dutch and international evergreens from a station that started out speaking, not singing.