Sveriges Radio P1 broadcasts news, culture, radio drama, debate, science, and current affairs around the clock from Sweden, branded as "Den talade kanalen," the spoken channel. You can stream it live and free right now on Radio Shuffle, wherever you are in the world.
Sweden's First National Broadcast
P1 traces back to January 1, 1925, when it launched as Sweden's first national radio station, according to Wikipedia's history of the channel. The station carried the name "Program 1" in its earliest form, though that full label eventually fell away, leaving just the P1 shorthand that Swedes still use today, a full century after that first broadcast went out.
Becoming the Spoken Channel
P1 settled into its current identity in 1966, shifting decisively toward the spoken-word format it still runs today rather than the more music-driven programming that had filled earlier decades. That repositioning gave Sweden a dedicated home for news, community programming, culture, radio drama, debate, science, philosophy, and international coverage, occupying roughly the same role in Swedish public broadcasting that BBC Radio 4 holds in Britain or CBC Radio One in Canada.
Sweden's Biggest Podcast Started as a Summer Fill-In
P1's most famous program did not even start on P1 at all. Sommar i P1, "Summer in P1," has run every summer since June 29, 1959, originally airing on sister channel P3 before moving over to P1 in 1993, according to Wikipedia's entry on the show. Each 90-minute episode hands the microphone to a different guest, who talks about whatever matters most to them personally while choosing their own music to play between segments, airing daily from Midsummer through mid-August. With more than 800 archived editions dating back to 1963 available as podcasts since 2005, Sommar i P1 has grown into what Sveriges Radio itself now calls Sweden's largest podcast, an entire tradition of personal storytelling built out of what began as a summer scheduling gap.
A Station That Never Sleeps, Since 2015
For decades, P1 actually went dark overnight, shutting down between 2:30 and 5:30 a.m. and airing only a looping tune and encrypted content for visually impaired listeners during those hours. That changed on January 13, 2015, when P1 moved to genuine 24-hour transmission, finally matching the round-the-clock expectations of modern radio listeners after nine decades on air.
Tune In
A century after its first broadcast, Sveriges Radio P1 remains Sweden's primary spoken-word channel, carrying everything from breaking news to a 65-year-old summer storytelling tradition that has become one of the country's most listened-to podcasts. Stream it free on Radio Shuffle to hear Sweden's national conversation, live.