Sveriges Radio AB (; "Sweden's Radio") is

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

's national publicly funded

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

broadcaster. Sveriges Radio is a

public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is a limited liability co ...

, owned by an independent foundation, previously funded through a licensing fee, the level of which is decided by the Swedish Riksdag. As of 1 January 2019, the funds stem from standard taxation. No advertising is permitted. Its legal status could be described as that of a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization.

History

The company – which was founded as AB Radiotjänst ("Radio Service Ltd") by a consortium of newspaper companies, the

TT news agency TT News Agency (Swedish: TT Nyhetsbyrån or simply TT; formerly ''Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå'' until 2013, translates to ''The newspaper's telegram bureau'') is a Swedish news agency, the largest in Scandinavia, owned jointly by the country's new ...

, and radio manufacturing interests on 21 March 1924 – made its first broadcast on 1 January 1925: a relay of High Mass from St James's Church in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. It was officially renamed Sveriges Radio in 1957. Sveriges Radio was originally responsible for all broadcasting in Sweden, both radio and television, and hosted the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest. A reorganization in 1979 saw it become the parent company of four subsidiaries: * (RR), ''Swedish National Radio''; * (LRAB), ''Swedish Local Radio''; * Sveriges Utbildningsradio (UR), ''Swedish Educational Broadcasting''; and *

Sveriges Television Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television aktiebolag, Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksd ...

(SVT), ''Swedish Television''. This structure was dissolved in 1993, with the national and local radio companies merging under the name of the old parent company: Sveriges Radio AB.

Stations

National radio

Four radio channels are available nationwide on FM, DAB and via the internet. * P1: news, culture, debate, readings, documentaries, etc. Almost no music is played, except in the daily summertime programme '' Sommar'', in which guest presenters introduce their own choice of music. * P2: classical music, folk, jazz and world music; the channel also carries some minority-language programming. * P3: popular music and comedy targeted at a younger audience. * P4: popular music, entertainment and sport, chiefly targeted at an older audience; the network is made up of 26 local stations, each of which carries a mix of local and national programming.

Local radio

A large part of P4's programming is regional with 26 regions each broadcasting their own local programmes during most of the day. * P4 Blekinge, for

Blekinge County Blekinge County () is a county or '' län'' in the south of Sweden. It borders the Counties of Skåne Scania ( ), also known by its native name of Skåne (), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces () of Sweden ...

* P4 Dalarna * P4 Gotland * P4 Gävleborg * P4 Göteborg * P4 Halland, for

Halland County Halland County (, ) is a county ('' län'') on the western coast of Sweden. It corresponds roughly to the cultural and historical province of Halland. The capital is Halmstad. Prince Julian, the son of Prince Carl Philip, is Duke of Halland. ...

* P4 Jämtland * P4 Jönköping * P4 Kalmar, for

Kalmar County Kalmar County () is a Counties of Sweden, county or ''län'' in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Kronoberg County, Kronoberg, Jönköping County, Jönköping, Blekinge County, Blekinge and Östergötland County, Östergötland. To the ...

* P4 Kristianstad, for the former Kristianstad County, now north and eastern

Skåne County Skåne County ( ), sometimes referred to as Scania County or just Scania in English, is the southernmost Counties of Sweden, county, or , of Sweden, mostly corresponding to the traditional Provinces of Sweden, province of Scania. It borders th ...

* P4 Kronoberg * P4 Malmöhus, for the former Malmöhus County, now south-western

* P4 Norrbotten * P4 Sjuhärad, for Sjuhärad, the south-eastern part of

Västra Götaland County Västra Götaland County () is a county or '' län'' on the western coast of Sweden. The county is the second most populous of Sweden's counties and it comprises 49 municipalities (''kommuner''). Its population of 1,616,000 amounts to 17% of S ...

* P4 Skaraborg, for the former

Skaraborg County Skaraborg County ( ) was a Counties of Sweden, county of Sweden from 1634 until 1997. It was disestablished at the end of 1997 when it was merged with the counties of Gothenburg and Bohus County, Gothenburg and Bohus and Älvsborg County, Älvs ...

, now north-eastern

* P4 Stockholm * P4 Södertälje * P4 Sörmland * P4 Uppland * P4 Värmland * P4 Väst, for western

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Vä ...

Dalsland Dalsland () is a Swedish traditional province, or ''landskap'', situated in Götaland in southern Sweden. Lying to the west of Lake Vänern, it is bordered by Värmland to the north, Västergötland to the southeast, Bohuslän to the west, ...

and northern

Bohuslän Bohuslän () is a Provinces of Sweden, Swedish province in Götaland, on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea to the ...

, north-western

* P4 Västerbotten * P4 Västernorrland * P4 Västmanland, for

Västmanland Västmanland ( or ) is a historical Swedish province, or , in middle Sweden. It borders Södermanland, Närke, Värmland, Dalarna and Uppland. Västmanland means "West Man Land" or, less literally, "The Land of the Western Men", where the "we ...

* P4 Örebro, for

Örebro County Örebro County () is a county or '' län'' in central Sweden. It borders the counties of Västra Götaland, Värmland, Dalarna, Västmanland, Södermanland and Östergötland. It is frequently culturally divided into the hilly northern region of ...

* P4 Östergötland, for

Östergötland County Östergötland County () is a county or '' län'' in southeastern Sweden. It has land borders with the counties of Kalmar to the southeast, Jönköping to the southwest, Örebro to the northwest, and Södermanland to the northeast. It also has a ...

Additional radio stations available locally on FM include: * Din gata 100,6 (in Malmö): playing mostly hiphop and R&B * SR P2 Musik (in Stockholm): relays most of the output of P2, but replaces programming in minority and foreign languages (available in Stockholm from P6, see below) with additional music output �
Schedule
* SR P6 89,6 (in Stockholm): broadcasts in minority and foreign languages and relays the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

at night �
Schedule

Digital channels

Sveriges Radio also provides a number of digital channels through DAB and via the internet. * P4 Plus, plays a broad mix of classic and current popular music (web) * Sveriges Radio Finska, in Finnish and

Meänkieli (literally 'our language'), or Tornedalian is a Finnic language or a group of distinct Finnish dialects spoken in the northernmost part of Sweden, particularly along the Torne River Valley. It is officially recognized in Sweden as one of the ...

(DAB, web and cable) * Radioapans knattekanal, children's radio (DAB and web) * SR Sápmi, for

Sami languages Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

(web) * Ekot, news (web)

SR International

SR International is the international channel of Sveriges Radio and offers programming in the following languages: *

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

�
website
* English �
website
* Kurdish �
website
* Persian �
website
* Romani �
website
*

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

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website
(closed on March 28, 2024) * Somali �
website
* Tigrinya
website
* Ukrainian
website
SR International is not responsible for programming in the domestic minority languages, Finnish and Sámi, which have their own dedicated digital channels. On 16 March 2010, Radio Sweden announced the end of broadcasts on shortwave and medium wave as from 31 October 2010. External service programmes would continue on the internet only. Language services for immigrants to Sweden in Albanian, Neo-Aramaic, Serbian, Bosnian, and

Croat The Croats (; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighboring countries in Central Europe, Central and Southeastern Europe who share a common Croatian Cultural heritage, ancest ...

would also be discontinued, while programmes in English (also on the domestic service), German, Persian,

Dari Dari (; endonym: ), Dari Persian (, , or , ), or Eastern Persian is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language;Lazard, G.Darī – The New Persian ...

, and Kurdish would remain. New language programs for Arabic, Somali, and Romani were established later that year. On 21 January, 2016, Radio Sweden announced that the station's German and Russian language stations would cease operations on 31 March of the same year. Editor in-chief Ingemar Löfgren (who retired that same year) stated that the decision was made in order to prioritize

minority languages A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...

in broadcasting.

Criticism

The public's trust in the company, along with its Public Service counterparts in Sweden, may have decreased slightly during the 2000s. The decrease is most significant among right wing citizens. On 2022, it was revealed that SR had registered the word "Sommar", meaning

Summer Summer or summertime is the hottest and brightest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, daylight hours are the longest and darkness hours are the shortest, with day ...

in Swedish, as a trademark, along with other names related to their show, Sommar i P1, much to the dismay of some podcast operators.

Twitter

On 18 April 2023, Sveriges Radio stopped using Twitter as part of its social media plan due to concerns over "recent turbulence" at the company over its (in)ability to combat fake news and hate speech.