FIP (radio station)

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France Inter Paris (FIP) is a French radio network, founded in 1971. It is part of the Radio France group.

Contents

[edit] History

The station was founded in 1971 by Jean Garetto and Pierre Codou, both week-end presenters at France Inter. It broadcast from Paris at 514 m (585 kHz) on mediumwave, which gave it its original name: France Inter Paris 514. It was noted for its particular programming and its hosts' sugary tone of voice as they described traffic problems with humour and irony.

After Paris, the station was emulated in other cities (Lyon, Marseille, and so forth), which broadcast the same music and news with local traffic conditions and events. The P in FIP changed according to the location: FIM, FIL, FIB, FIS, and so on.

As with Radio France generally, FIP moved to FM and stereo.

Given its role as a niche player in French public broadcasting, FIP was largely untouched by the changes in the French radio landscape starting in 1981. In 1999 Jean-Marie Cavada, the president of Radio France launched a restructuring called "Plan Bleu", which re-assigned frequencies among local stations, Radio Bleue, Urgences, Le Mouv' and FIP.

FIP lost its stations with small audiences: the stations at Metz and Nice were moved to the France Bleu network.

Despite listener protests, the plan was adopted on May 24, 2000[1].

[edit] Concept

The concept behind FIP has scarcely changed since its founding: music interrupted by traffic updates and cultural information with a short news broadcast at 10 before the hour, with no advertising. The broadcasts are presented by live announcers from 7 am to 11 pm, after which a robot replays parts of the music broadcast the previous day.

FIP's programming is an eclectic mix of musical genres: chanson, rock, world music, classical music, film music, jazz and more, but connected with a theme. FIP is one of the few stations with this type of programming in the world.

[edit] The network

The different elements of the FIP network since its creation[2]:

Successive names Location Inauguration Closure
FIP; FIP Paris Paris 1971 -
FIS; FIP Strasbourg Strasbourg 1978 -
FIB; FIP Bordeaux Bordeaux 1972 -
FIP Tours Tours 1985 1988
FIR; FIP Reims Reims 1972 1988
FIC; FIM; FIP Metz Metz 1972 2000
FIT Toulouse 1973 1984
FIL; FIP Lille Lille 1972 2000
FILA; FIP Nantes Nantes 1974 -
FIM; FIP Marseille Marseille 1972 2000
FICA; FIP Côte d’Azur Nice 1982 2000
FIL; FIP Lyon Lyon 1972 2000


[edit] Frequencies

FIP broadcasts terrestrially in France as follows:

  • Paris/Île-de-France: 105.1 MHz
  • Bordeaux: 96.7 MHz/Arcachon: 96.5 MHz
  • Montpellier: 99.7 MHz
  • Nantes: 95.7 MHz/Saint-Nazaire: 97.2 MHz
  • Strasbourg: 92.3 MHz
  • Marseille: 90,90 MHz
  • Rennes: 101.2 MHz

FIP also broadcasts on mediumwave (AM) at 585kHz in Paris from 0800–1600 Central European Time and is streamed over the Internet.

FIP is also available via free-to-air digital satellite in Europe from Astra 1H at 19.2°East, Hot Bird 7A at 13.0°East, or Atlantic Bird 3 at 5.0°West. It can also be received in Western Australia, Tahiti and surrounding islands from Intelsat 701 at 180.0°East.

FIP is also on UPC cable (at 88.1 MHz) in and around Amsterdam and on Casema cable (103.8 MHz) in and around Breda, The Netherlands.

[edit] UK pirate broadcasts

According to the Brighton's The Argus newspaper, a Brighton resident re-broadcast FIP for nearly ten years on two frequencies (91.0 and 98.5) on the FM band.[3][4][5] The two signals, which were relays of FIP from satellite could be heard in many parts of Brighton. The two transmitters were operated to serve different parts of the city, one of them allegedly being in the Bohemian Hanover area of the city. The station had proved very popular.

The two signals operated on frequencies originally used by FIP at Lille and Metz, which were unused in the Brighton area and caused no interference to existing national or local stations. Technical quality was very high and the Radio Data System (RDS) identification was F_I_P with the two signals linked to ensure best reception on an RDS car radio. The Program Identification codes of the RDS appeared to be the same as those used on the real French transmitters.

The rebroadcasts broke UK broadcast rules enforced by UK telecom and radio, TV regulator Ofcom. It is believed that Ofcom officials visited the address of the station operator and confiscated the equipment, taking the pirate broadcasts off the air.[citation needed]

The pirate station was one of the UK's longest running land based unlicensed stations, running almost continuously for 10 years.[citation needed]

An appreciation society for fans of FIP, Vive la FIP, meets regularly in Brighton; some members even visited the Paris studios of FIP and were featured in an article in the French listings magazine Télérama in February 2007.[6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Brochand, Christian, Histoire générale de la radio et de la télévision en France, tome 3, 1974-2000, Paris, La Documentation française, 2006, p. 329-330
  2. ^ Source: 100 ans de radio
  3. ^ City Tunes in to Gallic Station, The Argus, 8 April 2004
  4. ^ FIP fund launched to get station on air, The Argus, 15 April 2007
  5. ^ BBC Radio 4: You and Yours 23 April 2007
  6. ^ La fiancée du pirate (French). telerama.fr (2007-02-17). Archived from the original on 2007-03-08. Retrieved on 2007-06-08.

[edit] External links

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