Remembering the Happy Station – the longest running radio programme in the world

The television archives of Radio Netherlands Worldwide contain hundreds of hours of footage. Among them is a programme made to mark the 50th anniversary of the Happy Station, the show of ’smiles across the miles’.

The marathon broadcast on November 19, 1978, was hosted by Tom Meyer.

Happy Station was the world’s longest-running international radio programme. It premiered in 1928 on the Philips Radio station PCJJ.

From 1946, it was broadcast by Radio Netherlands Worldwide. RNW cancelled the Happy Station show in 1995.

It was resurrected in 2009 as an independent broadcast produced by Taiwan- based PCJ Media. RNW has no involvement with the new programme.