FIP: Французское радио вне времени и новостей

French radio network

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

The concept behind FIP has scarcely changed since its founding: commercial free music interrupted only briefly for occasional announcements about forthcoming cultural events (and, before 2020, traffic updates & short news bulletins). Currently, live broadcasts, from Paris, are from 7 am to 11 pm. During off hours, a computer replays music programming from previous days. All music programming is hand picked by a small team of curators, who create three hour blocks of music. They abide by a few rules, most notably paying close attention to how tracks transition from one to the other, across genres and styles, and especially making sure that a song is never played twice in a 48 hour window. FIP broadcasts around 16,000 artists and 44,000 different songs every year; 85% of its programming comes from independent labels. The short news bulletin at 10 minutes before the hour was conceived so that listeners interested in hearing more details could tune in to France Inter (or other stations) at the top of the hour; this was removed in June 2020, citing the saturation of news in the media ecosystem. Likewise, traffic updates, relevant to Paris, had been removed in 2008.

The station was founded on 5 January 1971 at 5 p. m. by the head of radio télévision Roland Dhordain and two producers from France Inter, Jean Garetto and Pierre Codou, both week end presenters at France Inter. It was broadcast from Paris on 514 m (585 kHz) medium wave, hence its original name of France Inter Paris 514. It was noted for its particular style of 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: FIB, FIL, FIM, and so on. As with Radio France in general, 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 reassigned frequencies among local stations, Radio Bleue, Urgences, Le Mouv', and FIP. FIP lost the stations which had smaller audiences: the stations at Metz and Nice became part of the France Bleu network. Despite listener protests, the plan was adopted on 24 May 2000. In September 2017, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that he regularly listens to FIP and that he considers it to be the best radio service in the world. In December 2019, Radio France decided that the short news bulletins at 10 minutes before the hour would cease, and that the local studios in Bordeaux, Nantes, and Strasbourg would close in July 2020. The COVID 19 pandemic has however delayed this change to December 2020.

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 MHz) in the FM band. 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 Kemptown 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, radio and TV regulator Ofcom. Although it is believed that Ofcom officials visited the address of the station operator and confiscated the equipment, thus taking the pirate broadcasts off the air, the station could still be heard on one of the original frequencies, 91.0 MHz, throughout the city until 2012 and the UK relay operator decided to cease broadcasting FIP to Brighton due to the continued attention from Ofcom, the UK radio authority. 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.