Today FM streams a mainstream mix of pop, alternative, and rock live from Dublin, Ireland today, built around a populist, personality-driven format very different from the station it started as. Press play on Radio Shuffle and it streams instantly, free, with no account or app download required.
Born as Radio Ireland, and it nearly sank fast
The station first went on air on March 17, 1997, as Radio Ireland, a heavily talk-focused network that launched with 150 staff and a schedule built around a farming show, traditional Irish music, classical programming, and light opera, according to Wikipedia's history of the station. The format flopped almost immediately. Within six months, listenership had collapsed to just 1 percent and staff numbers had been cut down to 50, a near-total failure for a station that had launched with serious ambition.
A radical overhaul brought in a UK hitmaker's team
Rather than fold, the station rebuilt itself from the ground up. On January 1, 1998, Radio Ireland relaunched as Today FM, bringing in Ginger Productions, the company run by UK broadcaster Chris Evans, to redesign its entire identity. The overhaul dropped most of the talk programming, shifted the music toward mainstream, populist fare, and poached two of Irish radio's biggest names, Ian Dempsey and Ray D'Arcy, directly from rival broadcaster RTÉ. D'Arcy launched his own show on the station in 1998, eventually building The Ray D'Arcy Show into one of the defining programs in Irish commercial radio.
From a failed experiment to a national fixture
That 1998 relaunch didn't just save the station, it defined it. Today FM has operated as a national commercial alternative to RTÉ's public broadcasting ever since, built on the same instinct that powered its turnaround: hire recognizable personalities, keep the music mainstream, and let the hosts carry the brand rather than a rigid format.
Listen free on Radio Shuffle
Today FM streams around the clock, and Radio Shuffle carries the feed live with nothing to install and no subscription required. Press play for the Irish station that rebuilt itself from a 1 percent listenership into a national name.