It was launched in 1925 as the first national radio station in Sweden, and adopted its current format in 1966.

Until 12 January 2015, SR P1 closed down between 2.30 am and 5.30 am every day, with the "Vågskvalpet" (sv) looping tune and an encrypted talking newspaper broadcast for the vision impaired filling the off-air hours.

[1] P1, which subtitles itself "The spoken channel" (Den talade kanalen), is the principal radio channel in Sweden for news, community programmes, culture, radio drama, debate, science, philosophy, the expression of opinion and international issues.

Part of the P1 schedule is also relayed by the Radio Sweden 1 satellite channel.

This is however no longer the case and the channel is now formally called just P1 (pe ett in Swedish).