Sveriges Radio P3Sveriges Radio P3

Offshore pirates got there first. Radio Nord broadcast pop at Stockholm from a ship in the Baltic from 1961, Radio Syd did the same off the Skåne coast, and Sveriges Radio — a monopoly with two channels and no interest in either — watched a generation tune past it. P3 went on air on 1 July 1964 as the answer: a third national channel, light music, aimed squarely at the listeners the pirates had proved were out there. It has been the country's youth station ever since, nationwide on FM and on DAB in the cities.

Mats Nileskär has presented P3 Soul since 1978 and was the first person to put hip hop on Swedish radio. Morgonpasset opens the day on interviews and news, P3 med hands long stretches to presenters guiding through the music, and DigiListan counts down the week's most-streamed songs. Unsigned acts get slots of their own, and well over a thousand songs turn over every week.