ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with radio and then television, looking first at the chronologically earlier medium, that of radio. Music, both popular and serious’, has of course been present on French radio and television since the very earliest days of both media. Commercial radio programmed popular music, initially live from the French music-hall tradition and later recorded, from the stock of French phonographic productions. In the period from the end of the Second World War to the arrival of the Mitterrand presidency in 1981, the development of French popular music was affected by the relative paucity of licensed radio stations in France. The feature of radio broadcasting that had the biggest influence on the development and promotion of popular music was broadcasting from across frontiers. The economic and commercial concerns that put radio quotas on the political agenda show how much the music industry is seen to depend on radio.
