Initially launched on 1 December 2008 as RTÉ Choice[1] alongside five other new digital channels – with one of which, also called RTÉ Radio 1 Extra but differently formatted (see below), it was merged in May 2013 – the channel offers a continuous service of what it describes as "quality speech from home and abroad".

This is made up of programming from international English-language broadcasters such as the BBC, NPR, and a number of others, together with time-shifted elements from the schedule of RTÉ's flagship station RTÉ Radio 1, plus those variations from the main Radio 1 FM schedule (chiefly church services on Sunday mornings and extended live coverage of sporting events) which are currently broadcast on Radio 1's longwave (LW) frequency.

[2][3] On 6 November 2019, RTÉ management announced that, as part of a major cost-saving program, all its digital radio stations would be closed, including RTÉ Radio 1 Extra.

[5] The channel repeated RTÉ Radio 1's epic 30-hour broadcast of the full text of James Joyce's novel Ulysses for the first time in 38 years on 16 June 2020, beginning at 8 am.

The decision to repeat the broadcast was partly influenced by the quarantine introduced in Ireland to limit the spread of the Covid-19 virus.