Late-night radio: A window on intimacy. With a freer and more intimate tone than daytime broadcasts, night-time radio has long been the privileged place for condences delivered in the anonymity of the night. At a time conducive to imagination and solitude, these broadcasts provide listeners with a reassuring voice that seems to speak only to them.But they are now giving way to less expensive programming.
Voice for night worker
Radio is in a way humanity that speaks to itself, that addresses itself day and night,” wrote Jean Tardieu in Grandeur et faiblesse de la radio (The grandeur and weakness of radio, UNESCO, Paris), in 1969. In fact, this humanity the French poet evoked only began to speak to itself at night quite recently. In the early 1920s, when the first radio stations appeared, they were only on the air for a few hours daily. Programming schedules expanded gradually to till most of the day, but broadcasts stopped when evening came.
Until the late 1930s, only a few nights were exceptionally lively on the radio – Christmas and New Year’s Eve, in particular, when festive and musical programmes extended past the usual hours.And yet, there may be no better moment to listen to the radio than during the hours of the night – when the listener is more available, more alone, and less distracted by external demands.
In the dark, the sound unfolds: “it is our hearing that we prefer to rely on”, wrote the French philosopher Michaël Foessel, in Quand la nuit s’éteint (When the night is over), in the French magazine Esprit, No. 393 (March-April 2013, p.12).Radio became an everyday consumer item in the 1950s, by when it was a permanent fixture in most homes and started to take over the evenings. In the United States, radio stations have been overing night-time programmes since the late 1940s – designed to make those who are still awake, dream. In Lonesome Gal, an anonymous actress whispered sweet nothings in her predominantly male listeners’ ears.
In Europe, regular night-radio broadcasts were introduced in the 1950s. The first of its kind, Notturno dall’Italia, was created in Italy in 1952. It was essentially a music programme designed for people of the night – truck drivers and night watchmen, bakers and typographers, nurses and insomniacs.
In 1955, the French radio station, Paris Inter, launched the show Route de nuit. The very recent introduction of the car radio, coupled with the increase in motor trac, made it possible to keep listeners company on the road, so that they did not fall asleep at the wheel. But very quickly, letters from the listeners testi ed to the success of these programmes. And their popularity soon spread beyond drivers and night workers. Insomniacs, night owls, students, artists and the elderly listened to these late-night shows. The transistor, which made it possible to individualize listening by taking one’s own personal radio into the bedroom, also encouraged the development of more diversized programming.
The late programmes soon began to relay the noisy and festive sounds of the night – broadcasting from a bar, for instance. But they also created an intimate atmosphere of quiet discussion. Programmes based on true confessions from listeners began in the US in the 1960s, initiated by the in uential radio talk show host Herb Jepko’s nationwide all-night show.
In France, while Ménie Grégoire’s afternoon programme on the private radio station RTL gave women the chance to discuss intimate subjects starting in 1967, confessional radio shows took on a new dimension on the late-night airwaves. It began in 1975 with Ligne Ouverte (Open line), hosted by Gonzague Saint-Bris on the private radio Europe 1. Then, public radio France Inter started Allô Macha (Hello Macha) hosted by Macha Béranger, which ran from 1977 to 2006.
Radio: Stronger and more vibrant than ever17 On these shows, listeners could call the radio station switchboard at the hour when loneliness became most pressing, and anxiety needed to be eased. This type of night programming gradually spread throughout the world, to the point of representing the very essence of night radio – a place where people could communicate and be listened to. Where they still exist, it is these talk shows that have lasted the longest on the air.
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