Journals

Radio France internationale

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Type	International public broadcaster
Country	France
Availability	France Canada Worldwide
Founded	1975
Owner	Government of France through France Médias Monde
Telus TV Bell TV Bell Fibe	Channel 971
Videotron	Channel 551 Channel 552 (RFI Musique)
Affiliation	European Broadcasting Union World Radio Network France 24 TV5MONDE French Minister of Foreign Affairs Institut national de l'audiovisuel Organisation internationale de la Francophonie Fnac
Official website	www.rfi.fr

File:Rfi logo.svg

Logo of Radio France internationale from 1996 till June 2013.

Radio France Internationale generally referred to by its acronym RFI, is a French public radio service that broadcasts in Paris and all over the world. With 35.6 million listeners in 2008, it is one of the most listened to international radio stations in the world, along with BBC World Service, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle.

RFI broadcasts 24 hours per day across the world in French and in 12 other languages in FM, shortwave, medium wave, cable, on Worldspace and on rfi.fr. It is a channel of the state company, France Médias Monde (RFI – France24 – MCD).

RFI was created in 1975 as part of Radio France by the Government of France, and replaced the Poste Colonial (created in 1931), Paris Mondial (1938), Radio Paris (1939), a private station which was commandeered by the Germans during the occupation of France, and the Voice of France which was operated by the Vichy regime from 1941 to 1944, RTF Radio Paris (1945) and ORTF Radio Paris (1965). In 1986 the French Parliament changed the law to allow RFI to operate independently of Radio France.

RFI operates under the auspices and primary budget of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. It broadcasts primarily in French, but also in English, Kiswahili, Hausa, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Persian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian. It also owns Monte Carlo Doualiya (formerly Radio Monte Carlo Middle East), which produces Arabic programmes in Paris, and airs them from a transmitter in Cyprus to audiences across the Middle East and North Africa.

English service

One of the largest foreign language services is the English Service, aimed mainly at Africa. RFI broadcasts for four hours every morning. All of RFI's English broadcasts are available online and for download on the English service website.

Incidents

On September 17, 2002, Togolese President Gnassingbé Eyadéma tried to stop the broadcasting of an interview with one of his opponents, Agbéyomé Kodjo, by phoning directly to the Elysée Palace. The interview was not censored by Jean-Paul Cluzel, RFI's CEO at the time, due to the coordinated intervention of the journalists' trade-unions. However, a report raising questions regarding the French secret services responsibilities in the 1995 death of judge Bernard Borrel in Djibouti, which was broadcast on May 17, 2005, was later removed from RFI's website for undisclosed reasons, possibly due to the intervention of Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh.

On 21 October 2003, Jean Hélène was reporting for RFI during the civil war in Ivory Coast when he was killed in Abidjan by police Sergeant Théodore Séry Dago.

On 2 November 2013, RFI reporting team Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon were murdered while covering the Mali elections. The United Nations set their death date to commemorate the International Day of Impunity each year.

Podcasts

RFI offers a daily podcast in simple French, accessible via iTunes, named 'Journal en français facile'. [1] There are also several other podcasts including the weekly Afrique Presse which is hosted by Assane Diop and discusses the most important news in Africa that week.

Transmission network

RFI uses 2 domestic shortwave relay stations in France, and one shortwave relay station in French Guyana. All the stations are owned and operated by the French telecom entity TDF.

• All RFI transmitters are fairly universally 500 kW, but some 250 kW are used in French Guyana.
• The technology used by France's domestic SW relay stations is ALLISS at Issoudun (Indre).
• The TDF relay station in French Guyana uses standard HRS type antennas.

ALLISS is a rotatable antenna system for high power shortwave radio broadcasting.

Comparison

Estimated total direct programme hours per week of some external radio broadcasters for 1996

Broadcaster	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	1996[2]
VOA, RFE/RL & Radio Martí	497	1,495	1,907	1,901	2,611	1,821
China Radio International	66	687	1,267	1,350	1,515	1,620
BBC World Service	643	589	723	719	796	1,036
Radio Moscow / Voice of Russia[1][3]	533	1,015	1,908	2,094	1,876	726
Deutsche Welle	0	315	779	804	848	655
Radio Cairo (ERTU)	0	301	540	546	605	604
Template:Country data IRN IRIB World Service / Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran	12	24	155	175	400	575
Template:Country data IND All India Radio	116	157	271	389	456	500
Template:Country data JPN NHK World Radio Japan	0	203	259	259	343	468
Radio France Internationale	198	326	200	125	379	459
Radio Netherlands Worldwide[1]	127	178	335	289	323	392
Template:Country data ISR Israel Radio International[1]	0	91	158	210	253	365
Voice of Turkey	40	77	88	199	322	364
Template:Country data PRK Radio Pyongyang / Voice of Korea	0	159	330	597	534	364
Radio Bulgaria[1]	30	117	164	236	320	338
Radio Australia	181	257	350	333	330	307
Radio Tirana (RTSH)	26	63	487	560	451	303
Radio Romania International	30	159	185	198	199	298
Radio Exterior de España[5]	68	202	251	239	403	270
RDP Internacional[1]	46	133	295	214	203	226
Radio Havana Cuba	0	0	320	424	352	203
Rai Italia Radio[1]	170	205	165	169	181	203
Radio Canada International[1]	85	80	98	134	195	175
Radio Polonia[1]	131	232	334	337	292	171
Radio RSA / Channel Africa	0	63	150	183	156	159
Sveriges Radio International[1]	28	114	140	155	167	149
Magyar Rádió[1]	76	120	105	127	102	144
Radio Prague[4]	119	196	202	255	131	131
Voice of Nigeria	0	0	62	170	120	127
Radio Belgrade / International Radio of Serbia	80	70	76	72	96	68

Source: International Broadcast Audience Research, June 1996

The list includes about a quarter of the world's external broadcasters whose output is both publicly funded and worldwide. Among those excluded are Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea and various international commercial and religious stations.

Notes:

1. Does not broadcast on shortwave as of 2014.
2. 1996 figures as at June; all other years as at December.
3. Before 1991, broadcasting for the former USSR.
4. Before 1996, broadcasting for the former Czechoslovakia.
5. REE ceased all shortwave broadcasts in October 2014 but announced in December that it would resume shortwave transmission in Spanish only for four hours a day in order to accommodate Spanish fishing trawlers who were otherwise unable to receive REE at sea.

External links

• RFI website
• English-language site
• RFI Hausa service
• RFI English Facebook Page
• RFI Music programme on Facebook World Tracks
• RFI English language Music section
• Music biographies in the RFI English language website