City Paris Slogan InterVenez (InterCome) | Broadcast area France First air date 1 January 1947 | |
Frequency AM:
162 kHz (Allouis) Will be discontinued on 31 December 2016
FM:
87.8 MHz (Paris)
91.3 MHz (Marseille)
99.8/101.1 MHz (Lyon)
Frequencies Former callsigns Club d'Essai (1947)
Paris-Inter (1947-1957)
France I (1957-1963)
RTF Inter (1963) | ||
France Inter is a major French public radio channel and part of Radio France. It is a "generalist" station, aiming to provide a wide national audience with a full service of news and spoken-word programming, both serious and entertaining, liberally punctuated with an eclectic mix of music.
Contents
France Inter broadcasts on FM transmitters across France, via the internet, and available in many parts of Western Europe on longwave on 162kHz.
The radio channel France Inter announced during 2016 that the channel would discontinue transmitting on the 162 kHz frequency on 1 January 2017, seeking cost savings of approximately 6 million Euros per year. The transmission of the atomic clock generated time signal will be continued after this date on the 162 kHz frequency as this time signal is critical for over 200,000 devices, which are deployed within French enterprises and state entities, like the French railways SNCF, the electricity distributor ENEDIS, airports, hospitals, municipalities, et cetera.
History
France Inter was founded in the reorganization of state broadcasting which followed the end of World War II as "Paris-Inter" and charged with being French public radio's generalist (i.e. "full-service") service. The channel was renamed "France I" in 1958, although three years later one of France's most popular radio and television listings magazines was still showing the station's programmes under the heading "Paris-Inter" with "France I" as a subtitle. In 1963 the France I and France II networks were merged to form "RTF Inter", renamed "France Inter" one month later.
The major challenge faced by France Inter at the time of its reorganization in the 1960s was the private "peripheral stations" (in particular, RTL and Europe 1, broadcasting from powerful transmitters outside France) success in capturing the majority of the French radio audience since the war. They had done so by adopting a modern broadcasting style and earning a reputation for greater freedom from government influence.
As well as rapidly modernizing its style to match its competitors, France Inter stressed its freedom from commercial pressures – although it does carry a limited amount of paid-for advertising – and especially presented itself as intelligent radio accessible to a general audience under the slogan Écoutez la différence ("Listen to the difference").
Programmes
France Inter programmes, a number of which have been important milestones in the history of French radio, include: