Radio France Internationale

Radio France internationale
Type International public broadcaster
Country France
Availability
Founded 1975
Owner Government of France through France Médias Monde
 Channel 971
Videotron
  • Channel 551
  • Channel 552 (RFI Musique)
Affiliation
Official website
 www.rfi.fr
Logo of Radio France internationale from 1996 till June 2013.

Radio France Internationale generally referred to by its acronym RFI, is a French public radio service that broadcasts in Paris and all over the world. With 35.6 million listeners in 2008, it is one of the most listened to international radio stations in the world, along with BBC World Service, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle.

RFI broadcasts 24 hours per day across the world in French and in 12 other languages in FM, shortwave, medium wave, cable, on Worldspace and on rfi.fr. It is a channel of the state company, France Médias Monde (RFI – France24 – MCD).[1]

RFI was created in 1975 as part of Radio France by the Government of France, and replaced the Poste Colonial (created in 1931), Paris Mondial (1938), Radio Paris (1939), a private station which was commandeered by the Germans during the occupation of France, and the Voice of France which was operated by the Vichy regime from 1941 to 1944, RTF Radio Paris (1945) and ORTF Radio Paris (1965). In 1986 the French Parliament changed the law to allow RFI to operate independently of Radio France.

RFI operates under the auspices and primary budget of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. It broadcasts primarily in French, but also in English, Kiswahili, Hausa, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Persian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian. It also owns Monte Carlo Doualiya (formerly Radio Monte Carlo Middle East), which produces Arabic programmes in Paris, and airs them from a transmitter in Cyprus to audiences across the Middle East and North Africa.

English service

One of the largest foreign language services is the English Service, aimed mainly at Africa. RFI broadcasts for four hours every morning. All of RFI's English broadcasts are available online and for download on the English service website.

Incidents

On September 17, 2002, Togolese President Gnassingbé Eyadéma tried to stop the broadcasting of an interview with one of his opponents, Agbéyomé Kodjo, by phoning directly to the Elysée Palace. The interview was not censored by Jean-Paul Cluzel, RFI's CEO at the time, due to the coordinated intervention of the journalists' trade-unions. However, a report raising questions regarding the French secret services responsibilities in the 1995 death of judge Bernard Borrel in Djibouti, which was broadcast on May 17, 2005, was later removed from RFI's website for undisclosed reasons, possibly due to the intervention of Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh.[2]

On 21 October 2003, Jean Hélène was reporting for RFI during the civil war in Ivory Coast when he was killed in Abidjan by police Sergeant Théodore Séry Dago.

On 2 November 2013, RFI reporting team Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon were murdered while covering the Mali elections. The United Nations set their death date to commemorate the International Day of Impunity each year.[3]

Podcasts

RFI offers a daily podcast in simple French, accessible via iTunes, named 'Journal en français facile'. There are also several other podcasts including the weekly Afrique Presse[4] which is hosted by Assane Diop and discusses the most important news in Africa that week.

Transmission network

RFI uses 2 domestic shortwave relay stations in France, and one shortwave relay station in French Guyana. All the stations are owned and operated by the French telecom entity TDF.

ALLISS is a rotatable antenna system for high power shortwave radio broadcasting.

Comparison

Estimated total direct programme hours per week of some external radio broadcasters for 1996
Broadcaster 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1996[2]
United States VOA, RFE/RL & Radio Martí 497 1,495 1,907 1,901 2,611 1,821
China China Radio International 66 687 1,267 1,350 1,515 1,620
United Kingdom BBC World Service 643 589 723 719 796 1,036
Russia Radio Moscow / Voice of Russia[1][3] 533 1,015 1,908 2,094 1,876 726
Germany Deutsche Welle 0 315 779 804 848 655
Egypt Radio Cairo (ERTU) 0 301 540 546 605 604
Iran IRIB World Service / Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran 12 24 155 175 400 575
India All India Radio 116 157 271 389 456 500
Japan NHK World Radio Japan 0 203 259 259 343 468
France Radio France Internationale 198 326 200 125 379 459
Netherlands Radio Netherlands Worldwide[1] 127 178 335 289 323 392
Israel Israel Radio International[1] 0 91 158 210 253 365
Turkey Voice of Turkey 40 77 88 199 322 364
North Korea Radio Pyongyang / Voice of Korea 0 159 330 597 534 364
Bulgaria Radio Bulgaria[1] 30 117 164 236 320 338
Australia Radio Australia 181 257 350 333 330 307
Albania Radio Tirana (RTSH) 26 63 487 560 451 303
Romania Radio Romania International 30 159 185 198 199 298
Spain Radio Exterior de España[5] 68 202 251 239 403 270
Portugal RDP Internacional[1] 46 133 295 214 203 226
Cuba Radio Havana Cuba 0 0 320 424 352 203
Italy Rai Italia Radio[1] 170 205 165 169 181 203
Canada Radio Canada International[1] 85 80 98 134 195 175
Poland Radio Polonia[1] 131 232 334 337 292 171
South Africa Radio RSA / Channel Africa 0 63 150 183 156 159
Sweden Sveriges Radio International[1] 28 114 140 155 167 149
Hungary Magyar Rádió[1] 76 120 105 127 102 144
Czech Republic Radio Prague[4] 119 196 202 255 131 131
Nigeria Voice of Nigeria 0 0 62 170 120 127
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Radio Belgrade / International Radio of Serbia 80 70 76 72 96 68

Source: International Broadcast Audience Research, June 1996

The list includes about a quarter of the world's external broadcasters whose output is both publicly funded and worldwide. Among those excluded are Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea and various international commercial and religious stations.

Notes:
  1. Does not broadcast on shortwave as of 2014.
  2. 1996 figures as at June; all other years as at December.
  3. Before 1991, broadcasting for the former USSR.
  4. Before 1996, broadcasting for the former Czechoslovakia.
    5.
  5. REE ceased all shortwave broadcasts in October 2014 but announced in December that it would resume shortwave transmission in Spanish only for four hours a day in order to accommodate Spanish fishing trawlers who were otherwise unable to receive REE at sea.

References

  1. ↑ "Radio France Internationale". http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Accueil_principal''. Wikipedia en français. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  2. ↑ "Une " CNN à la française " - Parrain privé, chaîne publique". Le Monde Diplomatique. January 2006. (also available in Persian here)
  3. ↑ "UN General Assembly adopts resolution on journalists safety - Reporters Without Borders". rsf.org.
  4. ↑ Afrique Presse

External links