ENGLISH-LANGUAGE RADIO STATIONS SHUT OUT OF PARIS

Agence France Presse — English
May 22, 2007 Tuesday 12:09 PM GMT

English-language radio stations complained Tuesday they had been
refused an FM licence in Paris, a city which currently has Armenian,
Portuguese and Arabic broadcasters but not a single English language
station.

The BBC World Service, Paris Live Radio and World Radio Paris were
all excluded from a shortlist of contenders for licences drawn up by
the CSA, the French broadcasting authority.

"It is unknown in the developed world for a major city to not have
at least some local radio in English," said Ian de Renzie Duncan,
the director of Paris Live Radio, which has broadcast on satellite
and cable in France.

"The CSA have just said ‘no English radio’ on our turf," he said in
a statement.

"The decision is extraordinary. It just lacks any comprehension of
Paris’ place in the world today as the world’s most visited city.

What about the 20 million English-speaking tourists that visit Paris
every year?"

The CSA on May 14 put out a statement saying its "tender for 147
frequencies including 66 new frequencies optimizes the efficiency
of the FM band… The range of choice for listeners will as a result
increase."

David Blanc, director of World Radio Paris, a joint venture between
NPR of the US, the BBC and the American University in Paris, said he
too was disappointed by the CSA’s decision.

"The French (authorities) are afraid of the English language," he
told AFP.

Ian de Renzie Duncan of Paris Live Radio noted in his statement that
as well as the millions of tourists that come to the French capital
every year there were also 400,000 English-speaking foreign residents
in the Paris region.