SRF 3 streams pop music, entertainment, and music news in German from Switzerland's public broadcaster SRG SSR, reaching well over a million listeners daily. You can stream it live and free right now on Radio Shuffle, wherever you are in the world.
Born at One Minute Past Midnight
SRF 3 launched as DRS 3 at exactly 0:01 on November 1, 1983, and its opening sound was, fittingly for a brand-new station, the cry of a newborn baby, according to SRF's own account of the station's founding. That evening the station aired its first live concert, a broadcast of Polo Hofer performing at the Atlantis venue in Basel, giving DRS 3 an immediate connection to Switzerland's live music scene on day one.
A Direct Response to Private Radio
DRS 3 exists because Switzerland had just authorized private local radio stations, creating real competition for young listeners' attention for the first time. Radio director Andreas Blum set the tone early, insisting "DRS 3 soll kein Radio Bummbumm werden," that DRS 3 should not become a mindless party station, a line that shaped a format built around genuine music discovery rather than pure background noise. The strategy worked immediately: DRS 3 launched with a 14 percent market share, and together with the new private stations, it helped drive a roughly 20 percent increase in overall daily radio consumption across Switzerland, concentrated heavily among younger listeners finally hearing music built for them.
From DRS 3 to SRF 3
The station carried the DRS 3 name for nearly three decades before Swiss Radio and Television services merged in 2012, at which point it was renamed Radio SRF 3. By that point the station had grown from its modest 1983 launch into one of Switzerland's most listened-to radio brands, now reaching more than 1.4 million daily listeners.
Forty-Five Years of Sounds!
One of SRF 3's original 1983 programs, the music special "Sounds!," is still running today, now hosted by Lea Inderbitzin, Andi Rohrer, and Luca Bruno, airing Monday evenings and Tuesday through Friday from 8 to 11 p.m. covering indie, pop, electronica, hip-hop, global beats, folk, rock, and punk. Every Friday brings a dedicated Sounds! Mixtape segment built around electronic DJ sets, and the show puts real editorial weight behind Swiss artists specifically, running live sessions, reviews, and artist portraits that keep homegrown music in rotation alongside international acts.
Tune In
More than four decades after a newborn's cry opened its first broadcast, SRF 3 remains Switzerland's flagship pop station, still running one of its founding shows and still drawing a national audience that private radio was supposed to steal away in 1983. Stream it free on Radio Shuffle to hear it live.