Since the early 80s, fm radio has had time to impose itself, to conquer all layers of the population, to evolve in quality, to target its listeners, to find its rhythm, to impose itself in the habits of consumers, and of course to cement its business model. Nowadays, it is not surprising to turn the button on an FM radio, to come across a multiple offer of relatively varied programs and let yourself go to listen to them. Listen to them or hear them? Everything is to be nuanced.
FM radio:a social phenomenon
The fm band has changed a lot today and is no longer a dream. She is wrinkled, has lost her creativity. Hundreds of music stations often copy each other, by dressing up similar jingles, by brief interventions by formatted "hosts", forced to quote in 20 or 30 seconds three times the name of the station with the only information a gossip or a concert.
Others have chosen to differentiate themselves by offering more targeted programs, for older, more feminine, more communal, more informed audiences, etc. But in 2021, "the forties" must renew themselves and the Médiamétrie polls indicate a fall among the musicals, in particular the NRJ group. (1) Nowadays, young people are no longer really attracted by these radios, it is enough to ask college students the following question:“What do you listen to on the radio? What radio? “, to hear himself answer” Uh… we don’t really listen, we download, or maybe our parents’ radio but it’s because they impose it “.
However, forty years ago -in 1981- at 13 or a little more, it was a real excitement than listening to the Fm band. A revolution, an unprecedented cultural upheaval. The state broadcasting monopoly crumbled, like the Berlin Wall a few years later. Young people were looking all along a sizzling fm band - by turning the knob on their stereo - for the radio and the music they liked the most. At each millimeter between 87.5 and 108 MHz, we came across emerging radios freeing young people to speak. And especially also, for the musical ones, this year, would from now on make it possible to make known new talents.
The death knell had therefore sounded for the dozen performers -always the same ones- regularly scheduled on peripheral radios. From now on, the Sheila, Dalida, Frédéric François, Dave, Martin Circus or other Mireille Mathieu, could get a blood of ink! The Fm was to give birth to an explosion of musicians and performers like France had never known. Let's quote at random for 1981-82:Rita Mitsouko, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Céline Dion, U2, Eurythmics, Jean-Luc Lahaye, Imagination…
A look back at these crazy years when oral expression was released on the airwaves, with some of the actors of the moment linked to the official beginnings of these free radio stations. The reader will understand that not all can attest here. Some are no longer there, others remain unreachable, still others continually pull the blanket over them and transform or forget reality. So, in addition to the essential politicians or journalists of the time involved in the cultural project of FM radio, the floor is given over these lines to those who actively experienced the real beginnings as animators, improvised station directors , singers, enthusiasts and even listeners found!
It should be noted that well before the arrival of François Mitterrand as head of state, pirate radio experiments had been maturing for a few years. “The events of May 68 made part of the public aware that they wanted to be heard, and that the radio was a good instrument of social communication. Despite 1968, the state retained the monopoly on radio and television” (2) .
Back to pirate radios
However, we must mention the names of the pioneers. The essential being Radio Caroline (born in 1964!) which broadcasts in Great Britain and can be received in the coastal area of northern France and Pas-de-Calais and even as far as Normandy. This station broadcasting from a ship in international waters remains the first model of freedom of the airwaves.
Later, in France, we must remember Radio-Entonnoir from the Fac de Jussieu, Radio Noctiluque, Radio Ivre by Patrick Vantroyen, or even that of Brice Lalonde (the 'ecologist) and Antoine Lefébure with their Radio-Verte whose first broadcast dates from May 1977. These first pirates experienced hide-and-seek games with the authorities, police raids, transmitter confiscations, jamming, changes of sites to broadcast illegally either from an office at the Montparnasse Tower, or from apartments near the Buttes-Chaumont, from factories, etc. But we must not hide either in this adventure of the FM radio that a small glimmer of hope to see these free media officially born under the Presidency of Giscard, had already made its way with right-wing men like François Delmas - Mayor of Montpellier - defender of the liberation of the airwaves.
Radio fil Bleu in Montpellier has been broadcasting since 1977...
Everyone thought at that time that the monopoly of radio in France was legally locked when it was not! No valid penal provision, according to Maître Chassaing from Hérault, protects him. The 1972 law remained too vague. This "Giscardian" lawyer, who shook the monopoly in 1977, by obtaining a dismissal following the seizure of Radio Fil Bleu proved it. Some time later, the Lecat Law during the summer of 1978 will fill the legal desert, with heavy penalties, a real repressive arsenal.
Radio Fm, called pirate before the arrival of the socialists in power or even radio-free, has become over time private and commercial. Others, however, preferred to keep the associative status.
It sizzles quite a bit on the Fm band
After May 10, 1981, hundreds of small radio stations began crackling on the fm band, with very imaginative names. Radio-Tomate, Alligator, Here and Now, Carbone 14, Radio Eglantine, Gilda, N.R.J, and many others. Each with a more or less efficient transmitter, with a program schedule that is not always reliable, volunteer presenters capable of giving their all for hours on end and then moving on to a "real job" on the same day or not.
Makeshift radios located in cramped studios between a bed and a kitchenette, or on the top floor of a building on the highest point in Paris with the transmitter in the bathroom, the microphones and the console in the kitchen, then the switchboard, the discotheque, three chairs and a sofa in the remaining 8 m2, or even in back shops or friends' apartments. It is therefore most often from summary arrangements that the free radios emitted. The public did not see the hidden side, only the music, the warm atmosphere, the tone of cronyism and the interactivity between the presenters and listeners counted, without forgetting the accessibility of the "speakers" on the single telephone line. A model far from the star system of peripherals...
Indeed, the listener could call the radio directly, request a particular song, send a message, have the host on the line and even meet him. By writing these lines, exceptionally allowed me to testify since I stayed two years from the beginning of 82 to the autumn of 84 on the one called N.R.J in Paris. The listeners brought us croissants in the morning, asked us to go have a drink with them in the capital, introduced us as "stars", invited us to discotheques.
A phenomenon that affected the most popular stations in their broadcasting area, but which was already much more established for Jean-Paul Baudecroux's radio station:N.R.J. Just like for me at the heart of this radio, hosts like Gilles, Catherine, Jacky, Bubu, Mitsou, experienced these moments of rising glory. Some after 1984, were able to go even further in their notoriety according to their own desires to continue as "push-discs" - as they were called - on music stations. But here I will stick to the main first two years.
Here are some testimonials from several actors of the time, involved in this landmark adventure for an entire generation. Among them, the former Minister of Culture Jack Lang, the journalist Michèle Cotta, the animators Jacky Gallois or Alexandre Debanne, the artists like Jean-Pierre Mader and Jil Caplan, just like Alex Taylor one of the pioneers of Gamme Gaie , the passionate Laurent Rangin-Rochefort. Without ignoring the words of Max Guazzini Vice-president of "The most beautiful radio" -to use a historic slogan of the fm band- and two testimonies collected from listeners.
Testimonials from FM pioneers
Jack Lang answering the question Did you listen to these radios at the start? "A little of course. But I was not a fanatic. You know, Jean-Marc Laurent, I followed this movement, I supported it because I knew Brice Lalonde at the time, with Radio-Verte »
Michèle Cotta, former President of the High Authority, about access to advertising for radio stations fm:"One day of the conference, where I plead in public For, and Fillioud Against (he followed the line of the 1st Minister without being in agreement on this point), we have a return of announcement from Mitterrand during a conference… which announces that he is in favor of advertising on private radio stations!!! No, but what was it to understand …??? So there, Georges Fillioud and I to mark our friendship and agreement finally, one day when Mitterrand had summoned us each on our side for reprimands, we arrived together…in the same car. Together, to mean that we could be less divided… Mitterrand saw that and took it very badly, he was very annoyed, and said to me “Are you coming together? I thought that the High Authority was independent, however”
Max Guazzini, former Vice-President of NRJ, replies:"According to a poll published by Liberation, Nrj is already the most listened to music radio station in Paris, ahead of RFM, which is then very Rock US… In a dinner, where I accompany Dalida, this one asks the boss of the programs of a large peripheral radio:What is your opinion on the free radios? It will pass, quickly, very quickly. It's just a fad..." Max Guazzini also says:“Advertising is prohibited on free radio stations. A Fillioud adviser to whom I open up about the problem gives me advice:get in touch with film producers. Your listeners interest them... That year, Anne François produced and distributed a detective film, La Balance... she gave us 50,000 francs at the time... in exchange for which we offered listeners tickets for the preview. This amounts to disguised advertising” (cit:Max Guazzini in “I am not a saint” at Robert Laffont, p.100,102,104)
Alexandre Debanne, presenter, reminds me:"For the record, Daniel Colling, who is one of the co-founders of Printemps de Bourges, managed to find me and offered to be the radio of his festival! I laugh thinking about it, it was in 77 and I became the official radio station of Printemps de Bourges in the illegal years of FM radio… My radio was called CFM (for Cher le département, and FM of course). So, in my region, I had already talked about myself a bit, and I was contacted by a small press group to set up a radio station in Blois. But I continued my job as a disc jockey to earn a living.
Jacky Gallois, whom Europe1 listeners have been able to follow for years, started right in 1981 on NRJ:"On leaving the School of Animation - Esac - I participate in a competition to get a job. I win the 3rd prize, to become an animator. I had to leave on Radio-Antilles, on the island of Montserrat. But chance would have it that Eric Perrin - a future journalist who also worked for NRJ - a student like me at that time - listened in a corridor to a telephone exchange from which it emerged that the creator of a future Parisian radio station was looking for young people for his project. We are here about ten days after the election of François Mitterrand… Under Eric's impulse, we called the number - without the Director of our School knowing about it - and it was Jean-Paul's number Baudecroux! (The creator of NRJ). So on July 15, 1981, I started taking the air at 3 p.m.
Interviewing Alex Taylor - the only radio and TV host adopted by Frenchies despite a "cup of tea" accent - I collect his impressions:“As soon as I finished my studies at the University of Oxford, I came to France and fell in love with a student who knew Patrick Oger, the one who wanted to create the Gay Frequency radio. I attended meetings for fun with my boyfriend, and I got into the game because starting a radio to defend the gay cause seemed relevant to me. It must be said that I had left my country, especially with the desired hardening of Thatcher and its "clause 28" which prohibited in public to promote anything on homosexuality. So, in France, I arrived in a country that left a very real freedom to all »
The testimony of Laurent Rangin-Rochefort is also essential to understand this period:"On the fm tape, it was RFM that I liked, with a certain Sergio who imitated Georges Lang, version closer to our age. I have always been attracted to this medium of radio, only my parents wanted me to have a "real job". So, I headed for the air, to join TAT. This did not prevent me between 82 and 83 to do my voluntary experiments on free radios. At Ris-Orangis on Canal 102 where there was also Kad Mérad. One day, following an announcement in Télé 7 jours, a producer from France-Inter gave young people a chance. It was Michel Bichebois. He asked for a model, and if it was convincing, we hosted the night on France-Inter in Les Bleus de la nuit. I've done it several times. What wonderful memories”.
Precisely, Michel Bichebois who made a career in public service, quickly realized that the Fm could be a breeding ground for rejuvenating the antenna of Inter:“ I remember Philippe Dana, Christophe Dechavanne, Noelle Bréham, who appeared in my programs when they started. We wanted to give a “framed” freedom of expression on France-Inter, and then I did a debrief, there was a specific driver, a chosen program, etc., all these things did not exist in free radios. We have professionalized those who wanted to continue on this path. At least in our public sphere”.
Jean-Pierre Mader, the singer:“…the producer of my album -Richard Seff- proposed to Phonogram, which became Universal, to make a tour of France of all these radios for the promotion of my disc and in exchange one made the identity card of all these radios likely to interest them to make hear their productions. The record company also paid us for the rental of the car and the small hotels with the meals. So I tour the cities of France. We had bought a small radio, we were going to the big cities of Marseille, Lyon, St-Etienne, Lille, Roubaix, Nantes etc... carry my album and pass it around. So. Without the Fm I would have had a lot more trouble, it's true".
Jil Caplan:“I listened to Carbone 14, Radio Tomate, and I recorded the songs with a K7, but it annoyed me because the animators put the jingles on the intros. But I also did radio, on Boulevard du Rock, we were called the cute rockers! I hosted with two girlfriends. We invited underground bands of the moment for interviews. They didn't make a career but that's okay, we were having fun, it was crazy. We left the radio dad-mom, to appropriate a new medium and do it our way. Personally, I first knew these radios as a listener and host, before it was the radios that programmed my first title "Oh all nights" in 87...and there it was no longer free radios" .
40 years of Fm radio
To conclude, the forty years of FM radio will no doubt be timidly celebrated with some media in 2021, in the face of strong news still linked to the Covid-19 pandemic which won't stop overnight. Also undoubtedly facing another major anniversary, that of the forty years of the abolition of the death penalty in France as mentioned at the beginning of the article. Nowadays in mainland France there are 1220 private radio stations. France remains the country that has experienced the craziest adventure of the Fm band, both in terms of its history and its impact on the population. It remains to be seen if it still has a bright future ahead of it, musicals are losing listeners every day, the advertising market is no longer the same, generations follow each other and are not alike and today it's downloading which takes off, or even personalized playlists, as well as podcasts.
Jean-Marc Laurent , pioneer host of the beginnings of legalized Fm radio, public speaking consultant and journalist
(1). Médiamétrie has published the audience results for Radio in Metropolitan France for the period from August 31 to November 1, 2020, measured among 29,710 people aged 13 and over.
(2) Deleu, Christophe. "Chapter 2. The appearance of free radio", , Anonymous on the radio. Uses, functions and scope of their word, under the direction of DeleuChristophe. De Boeck Superior, 2006, pp. 31-42.
To go further
- FM - the crazy history of free radios. Grasset, 1986.
- Pirate radios, from Radio Caroline to the FM band, by Daniel Lesueur. White truck, 2011.