How to Listen to South African Radio Online

Published 12 September 2026

You can stream South African radio live in any browser, with no download and no account: open 72FM's South Africa page, choose a station and press play. South Africa has one of the richest radio cultures in the world — a public broadcaster working in eleven official spoken languages, talk radio that sets the national agenda, and a music scene that gave the world amapiano.

The SABC: radio in every language

The South African Broadcasting Corporation runs public stations for each of the country's major languages, and together they reach more listeners than anything else on the dial.

• Ukhozi FM broadcasts in isiZulu and is one of the largest radio stations in Africa by audience — music, talk, sport and drama for millions of listeners.
• Umhlobo Wenene FM (isiXhosa), Lesedi FM (Sesotho), Thobela FM (Sepedi) and Motsweding FM (Setswana) serve their language communities in the same way.
• RSG (Radio Sonder Grense) is the Afrikaans service, with news, culture and serious programming.
• SAfm is the English news and current affairs network, and Metro FM and 5FM are the SABC's national music stations for urban and youth audiences.

Listening across these stations is the fastest way to understand how many South Africas there are, and how much of the country's life happens in languages other than English.

Talk radio and the national conversation

South Africans argue on air, and talk radio is where the country's politics, corruption scandals, load-shedding frustrations and sports rivalries are fought out every morning.

• 702 in Johannesburg is the best-known talk station, with news, phone-ins and interviews that make headlines of their own.
• CapeTalk is its Cape Town counterpart, with the same mix for the Western Cape.
• SAfm carries national news and long-form current affairs from the public broadcaster.

The regional music giants

• Jacaranda FM — adult contemporary and pop for Pretoria and the surrounding region, in English and Afrikaans, and the most-voted South African station in the public directory.
• 94.7 (Highveld Stereo) — hits for Johannesburg.
• East Coast Radio — Durban and KwaZulu-Natal, with an urban, coastal sound.
• Kaya FM — Johannesburg's adult contemporary station with a strong African music identity.
• KFM — contemporary hits for Cape Town.

The sounds that come from here

Amapiano. Born in the townships around Johannesburg and Pretoria, with its log-drum basslines and jazzy keys, amapiano has become one of the most influential dance sounds on earth. Dedicated amapiano stations stream it around the clock, and the national music stations play it constantly.

Kwaito and gqom. Kwaito was the sound of post-apartheid youth in the 1990s; gqom, the hard, minimal house from Durban, followed it into clubs worldwide. Both still anchor the urban stations.

Gospel. South African gospel is a huge industry, with its own stations and choirs whose recordings sell like pop. Gospel radio is on in homes and taxis across the country.

Maskandi and Afrikaans music. Maskandi, the guitar-led isiZulu music of storytelling, has a devoted audience on Ukhozi FM and regional stations, while Afrikaans stations such as Lekker FM and Bosveld Stereo play Afrikaans pop and rock that rarely crosses to the English dial.

Community radio

Below the national and regional stations sits a large community radio sector, licensed to serve particular towns, faiths and language groups. Bokradio serves an Afrikaans community audience, and Radio 786 in Cape Town serves the Muslim community with religious programming, news and talk. Community stations are where the most local South Africa is on air.

Listening from abroad

Hundreds of thousands of South Africans live in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Gulf and elsewhere. Online radio is how many of them keep the accents, the humour and the rugby of home in the background — Jacaranda for the drive, 702 for the arguments, Ukhozi FM for the language. Everything in the directory streams internationally in the ordinary way; if a specific sports broadcast is restricted, that is the broadcaster's rights decision. Expat radio is about exactly this.

Sound quality

South African streams are often modest — 32 to 64kbps is common for talk and even for some music stations — which suits phones and mobile data well. For amapiano through good speakers, check each station card for the bitrate and choose the higher ones. Radio audio quality and bitrate explains what the numbers mean.

A route in

1. 702 or CapeTalk in the morning, for the national argument.
2. Ukhozi FM to hear the country's biggest station in isiZulu.
3. Jacaranda FM or East Coast Radio for the regional music giants.
4. An amapiano station at night.

All of them are on the South Africa page, free, an hour a day without an account. For the rest of the continent, African radio online and Afrobeats radio go further.

Listen now: All stations from South Africa