Cool Audio Thing Of The Week: FIP, France’s Hippest Public Radio Station
Cool Audio Thing of the Week is a series where we highlight one quirky, compelling, whoa-I-didn’t-know-that-existed piece of audio that’s definitely worth listening to. This week, it’s FIP, a music station from Radio France.
To say that the Paris-based station France Inter Paris — FIP for short — “doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before” sounds stale, but stale-sounding things are often true. Founded in 1971, the concept behind FIP hasn’t diverged since its founding: it is a cool operation that creates and curates an eclectic mix of programming centered around music discovery, boasting a slight jazz bias, and only briefly interrupted by short news and traffic bulletins at the top of the hour.
If FIP’s enemy is the dull and prescriptive, then it casts itself as both an intelligent and cheeky provocateur, leaving no tracks unturned from its home country and the world over. It’s easy to become hypnotized by its impossible-to-predict playlist which seamlessly straddles the hitherto untested divide of nouvelle chanson, House, Broadway musical, live session, smooth jazz, and more. Commercial-free, and with minimal DJ chatter, FIP’s style allows it to pillage even-handedly, often playfully, making it clear that culture, a heady mix by nature, is begging to be heard, not just listened to.
Although resemblances of FIP’s spirit can be found in several NPR affiliate stations with local cult followings — Los Angeles’ KCRW and Seattle’s KEXP immediately come to mind — in England, which I call home, there isn’t a station close to its equivalent. For a decade, a pirate station in the artsy seaside town of Brighton rebroadcast FIP (until the UK’s media regulator disapproved and retired it from the airwaves), creating its largest following across the Channel. In this instance, the power of radio, and its ability to bring together two European countries that, at best, never really hit it off, should not be downplayed.
Mark your listening calendars for April 30th: each year, FIP raises a hearty rumpus for International Jazz Day with all-day jazz programming and special live broadcasts. In 2015, when Paris acted as the official Host City for Jazz Day, FIP was in its element.
—Megan Bradshaw, international partner manager
Previously:
Cool Audio Thing Of The Week: Live A Better Life By Reading Strangers’ Tinder Profiles
Cool Audio Thing Of The Week: A Live Police Scanner… With A Beat
