Owned by the state-owned broadcaster Mediacorp, it primarily broadcast news and cultural programming serving expat communities, including blocks of world music, simulcasts of programmes from international radio services such as Deutsche Welle and Radio France Internationale, and locally-produced cultural programmes in languages such as Japanese and Korean.

Plans for the station was announced by Minister for Information and the Arts George Yeo in March 1998, with the tentative name Inter FM, providing programmes in French, Japanese, and German.

[3] Ahead of the launch of the station, it was announced that FM 96.3 was going to feature locally-made programming in Japanese, as part of the first phase of the service, set to begin on 14 September 1998.

[5] Both the Media Development Authority (MDA) and Mediacorp mutually agreed to cease transmission of the station on 30 September 2016.

[2] In 2016, the vacated frequency was tendered and won by SPH Media,[6] which launched the new classic mandopop station 96.3 Hao FM on 8 January 2018.