FIP (originally France Inter Paris) is a French radio network founded in 1971. It is part of the Radio France group.
Concept
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.
Music broadcasts
The programming features all types of music genres including chanson, classical, film music, jazz, pop rock, world music and blues, but with careful attention paid to smooth and unobtrusive transition from one song to the other (for example, the rock and roll song Roll Over Beethoven can be preceded by a short sonata of Beethoven). FIP is one of the few stations in the world to transmit this type of programming around the clock. All of the songs are hand-picked by expert programmers. Some famous ones include Patrick Tandin, Julien Delli Fiori and Alexandre Marcellin. The first programmer was Anne Marie Leblond. Currently there are seven programmers: Armand Pirrone, Luc Frelon, Patrick Derlon, Christian Charles, René Hardiagon, Jean-Yves Bonnardel and Alexandre Desurmont.
The station broadcasts presenter-led programs during several evening hours:
7pm-8pm: Club Jazzafip with Jane Villenet (Mon-Thu) and Charlotte Bibring (Fri-Sun) 8pm-10pm: Monday: Sous les jupes de Fip with Emilie Blon-Metzinger and Luc Frelon Tuesday: C'est Magnifip! with Frédérique Labussière Wednesday: Certains l'aiment Fip with Susana Poveda Thursday: Live à Fip with Stéphanie Daniel
History
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.
Frequencies
FIP broadcasts in France as follows: Paris/Île-de-France: 105.1 MHz Bordeaux: 96.7 MHz/Arcachon: 96.5 MHz Montpellier: 99.7 MHz Nantes: 95.7 MHz/Saint-Nazaire: 97.2 MHz Strasbourg: 92.3 MHz Marseille: 90.9 MHz Rennes: 101.2 MHz Toulouse: 103.5 MHz
FIP also streams over the Internet, which gives FIP a global audience.