SOUTH OF FRANCE

The Waffler has been to the South of France before and there have been some articles in the printed version of the magazine over the past years. I think that we can return to this subject on the on line waffle as many of our readers may be going to this area in the next few months.

I stayed at St Maxime which comes under  St Tropez as far as radio transmissions are concerned.

This year we were very unlucky Virgin Express lost our cases at the interchange in Brussels on the inward and outward flights! On arrival we spent time at the airport filling out forms and as a result we were late in catching train to St Raphael. French buses stop at 8pm and arrived after that time. We had to queue for over an hour for a taxi. The taxi driver could only speak broken English until he started to talk about rock music. He asked my 16yr old son and friend if they liked Nostalgie on his car radio. They said no so he said "Do you like Chukka Berrrrrie" in broken English. He switched over to a CD of Chuck Berry, which was not bad but consisted of Chuck's re-recordings and not the original hit tunes. He then turned to me and started to reel of a list of artists like the Rolling Stones and Beatles. Then came a magic moment as he said "1976 ................... rrrrrrrrrrradio caroleen, outside territorial waters". The fame of the lady has spread far and wide, our genial taxi driver host told us that he had been in London in 1976 and enjoyed the programmes very much indeed. He also had some grasp of the concept of offshore radio.

Here is a copy from a local telephone directory of the stations that you are likely to hear in various areas in the South of France -

 

I hope that the clipping from the directory is clear enough to read - I did not have any way of sharpening it when compiling this article unfortunately

 

Here are the programmes that you are likely to hear on some of my favourite stations heard on holiday in the year 2000:

Riviera Radio is the only 24 hour English speaking station in the Cote D'Azur. You certainly read and hear a lot about it in a wide variety of radio magazines and internet sites. It transmits from Monte Carlo on two frequencies quite close together. I have found that wherever I have stayed I have had to position the radio and aerial very carefully and the reception is sometimes in mono and hissy. I have never stayed very close to Monaco, although have visited there and Monaco. It has also been my experience that the FM band in France is so jam-packed with stations which serve a specific area only. In Paris it is incredible how many stations are packed on to the dial there - and this has only been experienced by listening on the radio on earphones on a moving coach. The masts are in some cases on top of hills or mountains and you can find that on one spot on the dial merely moving the radio or aerial a fraction will bring in one of more stations.

The output of the station is a mixture of pop music programmes interspersed by news from the BBC World Service. They also put out what they define as other "Anglophile" programmes. They regularly carry what?s on sessions, and these contain information about events as small as a local cheese and wine party or as large as the Monte Carlo Rally. There is local news as well.

They do not publish their programme schedule on the internet, and I did not see anything more than adverts for the station with its frequency when in France. They are rather like one of the Mexico border stations broadcasting to the states. Monaco is a very small independent country and they also broadcast television programmes into France. Some of the television channels, especially MC6 put out some really rather sexual films and programmes on in the later evening!

The on-air sound is quite relaxed and rather un-polished. They may speak slowly so that French people can understand the announcements? Even though they aim at a large transmission area it has the sound and feel of a local caring radio station. I did enjoy the evening programme presented by a very laid-back calm sounding American male who never identified his name on air. On American Independence day he did a special show for all American's on the Riviera and featured American artists from Glenn Campbell to Frank Sinatra himself. The Sinatra version of New York, New York was a live version and contained some interesting spoken comments by the great man himself. They also play musical stings and jingles up to and even under the news reader from the BBC World Service.

All of the FM stations in France need careful tuning, because there are so many, but Riviera could do with a booster station somewhere in the Cote D'Azur, or shift frequency to the top of the dial, or boost power overall.

 

Nrj is a station which plays up to the minute music rather like Capital FM. To the English ear it sounds rather like Energie. It has a fast vibrant pressurised and compressed sound on FM - but is quite refreshing to listen to .

Horaire	Jour	Animateur
03h-06h	samedi	Grégory Courchay
06h-12h	samedi	Vincent Richard
12h-18h	samedi	Mahet
18h-21h	samedi	Julien
21h-00h	samedi	Extravadance Vincent Richard
23h-03h	samedi	Better Days Bibi et Sami
22h-03h	vendredi	Vincent Richard

Horaire	Jour	Animateur
04h-06h	dimanche	BrunoOré
06h-12h	dimanche	Vincent Richard
12h-18h	dimanche	Julien
16h-18h	dimanche	Euro Hot 30 Kévin
18h-22h	dimanche	Julien
22h-00h	dimanche	Kévin

 

Horaire	Jour	Animateur
01h-06h	lundi-mardi-mercredi jeudi-vendredi	Stéphane Gabarre Jérome
06h-09h	lundi au vendredi	Festival Roblés Bruno Roblés et Pascal Gigot
09h-12h	lundi au vendredi	Bruno Guillon
12h-16h	lundi au vendredi	Mahet
16h-20h	lundi au vendredi	Romuald
20h-01h	lundi au vendredi	Kévin
22h-03h	vendredi	Extravadance Vincent Richard

Horaire	Jour	Animateur
03h-06h	samedi	Grégory Courchay
06h-12h	samedi	Vincent Richard
12h-18h	samedi	Mahet
18h-21h	samedi	Julien
21h-00h	samedi	Extravadance Vincent Richard
23h-03h	samedi	Better Days Bibi et Sami
22h-03h	vendredi	Vincent Richard

Horaire	Jour	Animateur
04h-06h	dimanche	BrunoOré
06h-12h	dimanche	Vincent Richard
12h-18h	dimanche	Julien
16h-18h	dimanche	Euro Hot 30 Kévin
18h-22h	dimanche	Julien
22h-00h	dimanche	Kévin

 

This station pays as the subject suggestions, nostalgic and established hit music radio. They tend to mix English Language music with French. This is a throw back to the days when the government used to insist that the stations played more French than English and American tunes! Last year, I was at St Raphael and found that this station was more difficult to tune into, but thankfully this time it was stronger. I was quite impressed by the variety of music. During one session on the beach I began to wonder whether Herman and the Hermits "No Milk Today" was quite appropriate for the French audience. They did play "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones, and considering the Stones connection with the area in the past this seemed well placed on the schedule. The music was pretty well continuous but on occasions there were phone in elements, competitions I think, not requests. The jingle package is most impressive and some of them are quite long and sung in English. I have been listening to some recordings I made of the station and have noted there are some spells when they concentrate on French music, but some of the tunes are recognisable. I heard a dreaful rendition in French of the 70s Christies tune "Yellow River"

Here is the programme schedule (sorry it is very brief and in French but the main information is that it contains music and information about stars of song, cinema and show business:

 

			FLASH INFO VARIETE
		Du Lundi au Vendredi de 7h à 19h Un flash d?informations sur les stars de la chanson, du cinéma, du Show Bizz, ainsi que sur les potins des stars ainsi que la météo.
			C?ETAIT HIER Tous les jours entre 13h00 et 14h00
			SOUVENIRS SOUVENIRS : Tous les soirs entre 21h00 et 22h00
		Programme de variétés (chansons oldies) qui diffuse les plus belles chansons des années 1960 à 1980. De Charles Aznavour à Claude François, de Elvis Presley à Elton John, tous les succès défilent durant une heure de souvenirs.

Finally a few clippings of programmes from some of the more serious French stations from the regional newspaper

 

The paper clippings above really represents just how little space is given to radio listings in French Papers. There is a publication called something like the Guide de la Radio which is published annually. I saw it last year but did not renew my copy, and this year it has either ceased publication or sold right out

Added 20/7/00