Radio Ici et Maintenant ! (Here & Now! / RIM) was founded on June 21, 1980 in Paris by Didier de Plaige, Guy Skornik and Gerard Lemaire.
It is a local radio station, located in France, broadcasting in frequency modulation, and which broadcasts its generalist programs in the Île-de-France region. Since June 21, 2014, it is also a digital terrestrial radio which can be received in Île-de-France on any radio receiver equipped with DAB+ technology.
Since 1997, its broadcasts can be received at any time around the world through the Internet network.
Historical
Interviewed in October 2014 on a website specializing in "strange and bizarre" stories, producer Didier de Plaige, a pioneer of free radio in France, describes his station in these terms:
"It's a radio station that was founded more than thirty years ago, thirty-one years to be exact, following an observation: on none of Radio France's existing radio stations, listeners had no voice at all. chapter! The project consisted in making the type of radio that we would like to defend and which was lacking. That's Radio Here & Now. Thus, for 31 years, each program consists of two parts: the presentation and then the intervention of the listeners. We thus have a social barometer that allows us to know what is the impact of the information distributed by the major media. Originally, the internet did not exist and we wondered what the real impact of the news was: “Is public opinion mobilized as much as we would like us to believe?” Sometimes we find that big topics do not interest people at all while micro-topics excite them more. Then the internet arrived about fifteen years ago, information diversified and citizens spoke on blogs! That didn't stop us from continuing…"
Before 1981: pirate radio
Didier de Plaige, co-founder of the station
Originally a pirate radio station, this station was founded by Didier de Plaige, producer and host of television magazines, Guy Skornik, composer and songwriter and Gérard Lemaire, actor. It was seized twice in the early morning before the release of the airwaves and the establishment of the High Authority for Audiovisual on August 22, 1982.
In the early 1980s, Here & Now! offers its live broadcast 24 hours a day to listeners from several private studios with its hosts at the console. To the basic concept, is added a new automatic radio formula without the intervention of presenters which sees the light of day (the formula is called Radio Village) on December 1, 1980: a telephone answering machine is connected directly to their FM transmitter. The experience will be repeated many times and then Radio Village will become "manual" to allow the hosts to control any slippages. The original formula will, in the meantime, be taken over by the Italian station Radio-Municipale, broadcasting in Milan.
Another homemade invention is the telephone connection, a DIY that consists of listeners connecting their telephone to a cord equipped with a jack (socket) to a tape recorder output in order to broadcast their personal audio montage creations on the air.
1980s: Advocacy radio
Gerard Lemaire, co-founder and host of the station, until 1996
In 1984, the radio invited the Supernana, ex-host of Radio Carbone 14, to its airwaves, who welcomed listeners to her nocturnal program Poubelle Night, in an original style.
In the mid-1980s, the radio entered into a partnership with the Center Georges-Pompidou to broadcast a two-hour program every day on cultural news, notably directed by Gérard Lemaire3. In 1982, an unprecedented event, the radio broadcast Léo Ferré's song Ludwig on a loop for three days and three nights in reaction to the attitude of the RCA record company, which was slow to send them for promotion the triple album box set which had just to go out.
Note in this same decade some media facts marking the history of this station: two hunger strikes, one, in 1982, of three weeks, another, in June-July 1986, of forty days, in protest against the excess transmit power of its FM neighbours; the chaining to Daniel Buren's columns, in the main courtyard of the Palais-Royal in Paris, of several radio hosts, on June 21, 1986; or the occupation of the office of the president of TDF, Claude Contamine, on July 17, 1986 Michèle Cotta intervened in their favor.
1990s: free radio still
A forty-day hunger strike was organized by the president of a station support association in front of CSA headquarters in August–September 1996 before becoming a rotating one with the active participation of its listeners. In parallel to this action, the station challenged the decision of this authority before the Council of State.
2000s: reboot
Since its reboot in April 2001, Here & Now! transmits every day thirteen hours a day (from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.) in Paris and Île-de-France (95.2 MHz). The radio broadcasts continuously over the Internet. It obtained from the CSA, in December 2013, to regain its full frequency, with an authorization to transmit 24 hours a day on the French digital terrestrial radio (RNT). The start took place on June 21, 2014 on channel 9A in DAB+.
Station identity
Name and slogans
The phrase "ici et maintenant", often used in its Latin form "hic et nunc", is an expression used to refer to the position of a person at the time of uttering it, a term also used in philosophy or literature. A book by François Mitterrand bearing this name was published the year of the creation of this radio station, without, however, a link being able to be proven (the book was released in November 1980, i.e. approximately five months after the launch of the station ).
"I quit whenever I want!" is the radio's slogan, with the voice of Gérard Darmon, which appears at the bottom of its current logo.
Editorial slant
Most shows rely on interactivity with listeners. Over the years since its creation in 1980, the animators have renewed themselves many times without the original editorial line, based on the exchange, ever being modified.
A doctoral thesis was published and presented by Sébastien Poulain, under the title: "Alternative radios: the example of Radio Here and Now!" at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne on July 2, 2015 (837 pages).
