City Paris First air date 4 January 1971 | Broadcast area France | |
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Slogan "Respirez, vous êtes sur FIP" ("Breathe, you are on FIP") Frequency 105.1 MHz (Paris)
90.9 MHz (Marseille)
Other frequencies Format Jazz, World, Chanson, Rock, Classical | ||
FIP (originally France Inter Paris) is a French radio network, founded in 1971. It is part of the Radio France group.
Contents
Concept
The concept behind FIP has scarcely changed since its founding: continuous music interrupted only for traffic updates, occasional announcements about forthcoming events, and a short news broadcast at 10 minutes before the hour, but no advertising.
FIP's programming is an eclectic mix of musical genres: chanson, classical, film music, jazz, rock, world music and more, but with careful attention paid to smooth and unobtrusive transition from item to item. FIP is one of the few stations in the world to transmit this type of programming around the clock.
The broadcasts are presented live from 7 am to 11 pm, after which a computer replays a selection of the music broadcast earlier in the day.
History
The station was founded in 1971 by 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 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 reassigned frequencies among local stations, Radio Bleue, Urgences, Le Mouv', and FIP.
FIP lost those of its 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 May 24, 2000.
The network
The different elements of the FIP network since its creation:
Frequencies
FIP broadcasts in France as follows:
FIP also streams over the Internet. FIP's mediumwave broadcasts on 585 kHz in Paris (between 0800–1600 Central European Time from a transmitter in Romainville) ceased on 3 January 2011.
FIP is available in Europe on free-to-air digital satellite on Atlantic Bird 3 at 5.0°West and Astra at 19.2° east. The latter feed returned in January 2009 after a contractual break.
FIP was also available from Hot Bird 7A at 13.0°East, but after a conflict between Radio France and CanalSat, distribution ceased on July 1, 2008.
FIP is available off the ASTRA satellite at 19.2°East frequency 11568 MHz symbol rate 22000kSps, polarity V.
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 (at 99,5 MHz) in Leeuwarden and on Ziggo cable (at 106.1 MHz) in and around Tilburg and (103.8 MHz) in Breda, The Netherlands.
UK pirate relays
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 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. 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.
The pirate station was one of the UK's longest running land-based unlicensed stations, running almost continuously for 10 years.
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.