|
 ernand
Le Grand, heir to the Benedictine distillery, was certainly one of the earliest
wireless enthusiasts when radio first appeared.
When he was preparing his doctorate in law before the First World War, he was a
regular visitor to Edouard Branly's laboratory at the Institut Catholique de
Paris.
After the war, he returned to Fécamp to take over the family business, and
applied for amateur broadcasting authorization, receiving the call sign
E.F.8.I.C.
On January 1, 1924, he founded the Fécamp Radio Club, of which he was, of
course, president. The aim of the association was much the same as that of all
other radio clubs: to unite T.S.F. enthusiasts, to introduce them to the
mysteries of this new science, to present new developments and to guide them, if
necessary, in their choice of equipment.
Head office is at 16, rue Georges Cuvier, on the attic floor above the garage of
the Le Grand and Benedictine estate.
Enthusiasts didn't sign up in droves, and after just one year the association
still only had eighteen members. The year 1925 marked the first crisis for the
radio club. Members deserted the meetings because, now equipped with a good
receiver, they could pick up existing stations at home. Fernand Le Grand decided
that since they weren't coming to the radio club, the radio club would go to
them! With a handful of faithful followers, he builds a small transmitter of a
few watts for telephony. The purely technical development and testing took
several months in 1926.
At the start of the school year, after the vacations, experimental quarter-hour
broadcasts were organized every Saturday from 8.15 to 8.30 p.m. with 8.I.C. over
200 meters and 20 watts of power, in the rue Georges Cuvier premises.
From Saturday November 20, 1926, the small placard announcing the activities of
the Fécamp and area radio club in the local press bore the subtitle
"Émissions Radio-Fécamp", and the text was still very cautious: "Tests of
modulation (human voice), with reading of local and regional news"
(Radio-Normandie
book-press from the very beginning).
On Saturday December 25,
1926, the Radio-Club of Fécamp announced that 8.I.C. would not be broadcasting,
and that tests would be resumed on Friday December 31. It is specified that
Radio-Fécamp is finalizing the assembly of its definitive transmitting set, with
which it intends to extend its range and power. At present, with its makeshift
set-up, 8.I.C. is nevertheless received in excellent conditions, within a radius
of 40 kilometers and mainly by boats in the open sea.
On Saturday January 29, 1927, with a new microphone, Radio-Fécamp began its
first music broadcasting trials. The station suspended its broadcasts in
February. Construction began on a second, more professional transmitter... but
the radio club was in trouble. Some members don't appreciate the president's
madness about broadcasting. They consider it impossible or pointless. They deny
the committee the right to use membership fees for this pipe dream. It's a split!
Fernand Le Grand, stubborn, used his personal funds to build a new transmitter
with the friends who had remained loyal to him. But in the process, he moved it
into his vast family home at 125, rue Théodore Boufart, which bears the name
Vincelli-La Grandière, but which the people of Fécamp call the château.
In October 1927, the new 45-watt transmitter began its technical trials.
On Saturday, December 10, 1927, the general meeting of the radio club, attended
by the 36 members loyal to the president, was the occasion for a demonstration
of the new installations. Before the meeting, 8.I.C. made its first broadcast.
From the vast salon de la Grandière, transformed into an auditorium, Mr. André
Bellet sings two songs, accompanied on the piano by his wife, and Fernand Le
Grand issues a wireless invitation to amateurs to attend the club's general
meeting. A little further on, in front of the rue Georges Cuvier premises,
committee members set up receivers on the sidewalk to pick up the broadcast. The
meeting was, as expected, a plebiscite for the president and his committee.
Secretary M. Talbot's report and treasurer E. Durand's financial statement were
unanimously approved, and the entire board was re-elected in euphoria.
During the banquet, at the Joubert restaurant, the members listen to a second
program on the "poste-valise" brought by the vice-president, Mr. René Legros.
Mr. Hauguel, at the piano, accompanies the singer, Mr. Collignon.
From then on, Fernand Le Grand was supported by a small but determined team.
The year 1928 began under the best of auspices. A large 30-metre mast was
erected in the garden of the villa, to extend the sheet antenna attached on the
other side to a 5-metre mast on top of the Vincelli-La Grandière bell tower.
The transmitter is set at 212 meters and radiates at 100 watts. Programs start
with a single weekly broadcast on Thursday evenings, from 8:30 to 10 pm. Wheat
and herring prices, regional news precede a concert featuring jazz from the
Fécamp casino, the Saint-Étienne church choir, the Norman fantasist Maître
Arsène (Gaston Demongé), as well as artists passing through Le Havre who agree
to lend their support to the young station.
The town of Fécamp, the Chamber of Commerce, the agricultural union, the
shipowners' union and the electricians' guild voted in the first subsidies,
while a few timid advertisements appeared.
Fernand Le Grand was not discouraged by the July 7, 1928 decree authorizing the
13 private stations, which did not include Radio-Fécamp. He organized a meeting
of the Seine-Inférieure's main radio clubs in the grand salon of his villa,
which was also the station's auditorium. Impressed by the luxury of the
facilities - Radio-Fécamp's studio is 100 square meters, the floor is covered
with thick carpets, the walls are lined with damask and adorned with imposing
sculptures to ensure good acoustics - the representatives of seven of the
invited radio clubs found the Fédération des R.C. de Haute-Normandie, which
would support the station.
At the same meeting, it was decided to rename the station Radio-Normandie. The
vice-president of the new federation, André Bugeïa, president of the
Sanvic-Bléville radio club, wrote in the Le Havre-Eclair of August 20, 1928:
"Radio-Normandie is the only broadcasting station between Lille and Rouen,
which means that our province must take an interest.
Next autumn, power will be increased to 250 watts. Modulation has already
undergone serious modification, thanks to a resistor amplifier. (...)
In the field of broadcasting, despite the first-rate skills of our engineers and
technicians, France has lagged far behind foreign countries. This was due solely
to the prolonged controversy over the status of broadcasting. On the eve of the
vote on this statute, which should provide us with a coherent system, let's look
to those with good will and not seek to paralyze their initiatives".
A wide range of support was mobilized to save Radio-Normandie. But it was the
intervention of Georges Bureau, Member of Parliament for Seine-Inférieure, that
proved decisive.
He had been Under-Secretary of State for the Merchant Navy in 1915, in the
second Viviani cabinet, whose Minister for the Colonies was the current
President of the Republic, Gaston Doumergue. A lawyer, Georges Bureau was
reunited with his fellow barrister Georges Bonnefous as Minister of Trade and
Industry, on which the PTT depended. The Le Havre MP's efforts led to the
signing of a decree on January 24, 1929, authorizing Radio-Fécamp to join the
first list of July 1928 as the fourteenth private station.
Broadcasts take place three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays,
on 212 meters.
The costs became increasingly onerous, and it became impossible for Fernand Le
Grand to finance the station from his personal cassette.
Neither the Fécamp radio club nor the Fédération des radio-clubs de
Haute-Normandie, associations constituted under the 1901 law, could operate
Radio-Normandie commercially. Now that the station had a legal existence,
Fernand Le Grand wanted to enable it to develop. He founded the société anonyme
des émissions Radio-Normandie, whose articles of association were filed on May
25, 1929 with Me Le Monnier, notary in Fécamp.
The company's object in France, in the French colonies, protectorates and
mandate countries, and even abroad, on its own behalf and on behalf of third
parties, is the operation of the wireless telephone station known as
Radio-Normandie and Radio-Fécamp, it being understood that this station may
change its name if the need arises, and also that of any other transmitting
stations in which the company may be called upon to take an interest by creation,
acquisition or any other means.
The transmitting stations may be used indiscriminately for telephony, television
and all other uses and functions which the use of radio waves, in particular,
electricity in general and any other new scientific process, whether electrical
or not, may produce. (...)
The capital is eighty thousand francs, divided into eight hundred shares of one
hundred francs each, four hundred of which are allocated to the founder, André
Fernand Eugène Alexandre Le Grand, for his contributions to the company,
detailed as follows:
- Two masts, antenna wires, guy wires, a complete transmitter set, one hundred
and fifty watts and five hundred watts, a high-voltage amplifier, two four-volt
batteries (forty amps), one six-volt battery (sixty amps), three eighty-volt
batteries (sixty amps), a twenty-volt battery (seventy-five amps), a charging
unit, panel and switch, a machine with capacitors and filters, a microphone and
transformer, a Stellor pick-up, a polarization battery movement, a listening
post with resonance and a meter, all valued at the sum of 30,000 francs.
- A plot of land located at Fécamp (...) with a total surface area of two
hundred and seventy square meters (...), and the granting of the right to the
said company to erect pylons on the remaining land belonging to Mr.
André-Fernand Le Grand (...) with a total surface area of two thousand one
hundred square meters (...).
All the above real estate assets and rights are valued at ten thousand francs.
The land contributed to the company and the adjoining land loaned to it by
Fernand Le Grand, located just 300 meters from Vincelli-La Grandière, has the
advantage of being on a hill. Here, a small brick building was hastily erected,
and by July 1929, the transmitter, with its 30-meter antenna masts, was mounted
overlooking the town and the sea. Officially," explains Fernand Le Grand, "this
is neither a transfer nor a modification in the administrative sense of the term;
it's simply the relocation of a few hundred meters of the old transmitter built
by club members. In reality, it's a fundamental technical adaptation carried out
by Kraemer, manufacturers of broadcasting stations, which brings the radiation
power to 1 kW, but which can be increased considerably without any problem.
The station extends its listening area and reaches the south of England
perfectly. Its programs are regularly published in the English newspapers
Daily Mail, Daily News, Daily Telegraph, Morning Post and Times.
A first capital increase, from 80,000 to 100,000 francs, was approved by the
general meeting of Radio-Normandie on January 25 1930.
In February, for the first time, Radio-Normandie had its own stand at the radio
fair in Le Havre.
The contacts made on this occasion led to the founding, on Friday May 30 1930,
of the Association des auditeurs de Radio-Normandie (section havraise), by five
radio clubs from the Le Havre region, several industrialists and merchants, and
representatives of the autonomous port. The idea was to set up a studio and
auditorium in Le Havre, where artistic resources were less limited than in
Fécamp. Meanwhile, Radio-Normandie made its first outside broadcast on April 25,
1930, thanks to P.T.T. circuits linking the studio to the village hall of the
Hôtel de la Poste in Fécamp.
In June, Fernand Le Grand travels to London to see the first television trials
using the Baird system. There, he met the directors of the International
Broadcasting Company (I.B.C.), an English company set up to operate private and
commercial broadcasting, which was forbidden in Great Britain for the time being.
At their request, on his return to Fécamp, Fernand Le Grand had Radio-Normandie
make its first night broadcast, on Sunday June 29 from midnight to 1 a.m., so
that I.B.C. could carry out listening measurements. These were highly
satisfactory, and the principle of collaboration was established.
On Thursday August 7, the Association des auditeurs de Radio-Normandie, section
du Havre, receives its first official subsidy of 4,000 francs voted by the
municipality of Le Havre. Arrangements are made with the Hôtel Frascati for the
Le Havre auditorium to be set up in one of its salons, close to the hotel's
small theater, which can be used for gala evenings.
On September 26, the Le Havre studio is inaugurated and the first broadcast is
transmitted by the Fécamp transmitter. During the concert, Fernand Le Grand
announces that other decentralized studios will be set up in other towns in the
department, and that steps are being taken with the public authorities to move
the station to a more central location outside the urban area. The future
station will have a 5 to 25 kW antenna.
The reason and origin of these projects will become clear when we see that on
March 21, 1931, the General Meeting of the Société Anonyme des Émissions
Radio-Normandie carried out a capital increase subscribed for the most part by
the International Broadcasting Company Limited. The share capital was increased
from one hundred thousand francs to five hundred thousand francs. Two
representatives of the I.B.C. joined the Board of Directors: Albert-Edouard
Leonard and Leonard-Franck Plugge, both domiciled in London.
Since November 1930, the station has been broadcasting daily, with the exception
of one evening a week to allow listeners near the transmitter to pick up other
stations.
The first announcer, Miss Francine Lemaître, was joined by other speakers:
Roland Violette, Fernand (René) Malandain and Gustave Milet.
The programs published in the Havre-Eclair on January 19 show the growing
activity of the Le Havre studio:
Monday January 19th.
At 9pm: An evening dedicated to Maurice Chevalier.
Tuesday January 20th.
At 9 pm: Concert offered by the Association des auditeurs de Radio-Normandie
(section havraise). Relais du bar de l'hôtel Frascati: 1. Les joyeuses commères,
by Windsor (by the orchestra); 2. La Tosca, by Puccini: a) prelude; b) minuet (cello
solos), by M. Wimberg, former soloist with the Finnish State Opera; 3. Minuet
dans le style ancien, by André Caplet; 4. Cadence Tehuelches, by Carlos Lavin (violin
solo by M. Damais, of the Concerts Pasdeloup and vice-president of the Société
de Propagande musicale); 5. Rip, operetta by Planquette (by the orchestra).
Wednesday January 21st.
At 9 p.m.: Radio-concert with the gracious assistance of the Radio-Normandie
quartet (Mme Delacour, pianist, M. Richard, violin teacher, M. Croquison,
cellist and M. Raymond Deschamps, ripiane violin):
Part I: 1. Les ruines d'Athènes (Beethoven); 2. Mai (Reynaldo Hahn) 3. A mon
passage (Franceschi); 4. Sérénade hongroise (Joncières).
Second part: 5. L'Italienne à Alger (Rossini); 6. Sérénade, violin solo by M.
Raymond Deschamps (Ern. Richard) ; 8. Pasqua Fiorita (Chillemont).
Friday January 23rd.
9pm: Concert given by the Association des auditeurs de Radio-Normandie (section
havraise). Relais du bar de l'hôtel Frascati.
Saturday January 24th.
At 9 pm: Radio-concert of recorded music: 1. Je m'appelle Flossie (J. Szluc); 2.
Les chemins de mon coeur (J. Szluc) ; 3. Mon Petit (Jolson) ; 4. Lettre d'une
amante (M. Baggers); 5. Si mes vers avaient des ailes (Reynaldo Hahn) ; 6.
Princesse Czardas (E. Kalman) ; 7. Vous êtes la crème dans mon café (Marc Hely)
; 8. Frentique " Ô ma bien aimée" (Tehar) ; 9. D'une prison (Reynaldo Hahn).
Increasingly, the station's microphone moved to various events: boxing evening,
March 2, 1931 in Le Havre; mass celebrated on board the hospital ship
Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc, by R.P. Thierry d'Argenlieu (future admiral, commander of
the Free French naval forces in 1943), on April 19, 1931, before his departure
for the banks of Newfoundland; coverage of the French Cup quarter-final match,
Club Français de Paris versus Excelsior de Roubaix, on April 2 in Le Havre;
carillon concerts on May 24 and 31, 1931 in Rouen, etc. The increasingly
confident reporter is a young regional journalist and writer, Jean Le Povremoyne.
The Rouen studio, set up in one of the rooms of the town hall, was inaugurated
on June 25, 1931, and the opening of a 3rd outdoor auditorium in Le Tréport was
announced.
From June 1931, Radio-Normandie also broadcasts twice daily. The new program
session starts at noon, with the Benedictine carillon and the factory siren
announcing the end of the morning's work.
But in August 1931, Marcel Pellenc launched an offensive against Radio-Normandie,
as he had against several other private stations. Refusal to rent circuits and
other vexations disrupted the station's programming. The pretext invoked also
had political overtones, following the publication in the press of the letter
received by Fernand Le Grand on August 8:
French Republic, Post and Telegraph,
Direction départementale de Rouen.
Rouen, August 7, 1931.
Sir, I have the honor of informing you that the Paris broadcasting service has
reproached me for having given you a circuit during Mr. Tardieu's visit to
Caudebec without an official request having been sent by you and without the
corresponding authorization having been given by the administration. In any
case, we are no longer authorized to give a circuit to broadcast speeches
without the corresponding instructions having been sent to us.
This is the source of the difficulties encountered, and nothing else (sic).
So far, nothing has changed with regard to the broadcasting of concerts
requiring the use of urban or long-distance telephone circuits. Precise
instructions will be requested from the administration on these various points.
Yours faithfully
This subtle form of censorship is stigmatized by most specialized newspapers.
On December 20, 1931, Radio-Magazine expressed astonishment:
"We have received reports of curious Radio-Normandie tests on 246 meters or
so. These broadcasts, made on December 13, from 10 p.m. to 1.30 a.m., were very
clear and well modulated, and included a concert of English music offered by a
London company. They were heard in good conditions in Montpellier".
This was the culmination of Fernand Le Grand's agreements with I.B.C.
Radio-Normandie thus became, at certain hours of the night, an "English ring
road". Over the course of 1932, the station grew thanks to the new resources
provided by its English broadcasts, on the one hand, and the national
advertising provided for its French programs by the Publicis agency, on the
other. Regional advertising was collected by Radio-Normandie's sales department,
headed by Mr. Auzillon.
From February 1, 1932, English broadcasts take place on Saturdays and Sundays
until 3 a.m. on 233 meters, and from the end of February on weekdays from
midnight to 1 a.m.. The station's English team begins to swell. Speakers from
London include Bob Danvers Walker (aka "Uncle Bob"), his wife and E.J.
Oestermann, soon to be joined by John Sullivan, Ian Newman, D.J. Davies and H.V.
Gee.
The transmitter still has an official output of 500 watts, but new amplifier
stages give it a real output of 8 kW.
Twice a week, Radio-Normandie also conducts its first television trials.
Henri de France, the young administrator-director of the Compagnie Générale de
Télévision du Havre, equipped the station with his process, the characteristic
feature of which is that transmission takes place in successive signals
separated by intervals of dead time ("L'Antenne", February 14, 1932).
But these radiovision trials only lasted a few weeks, and then came to an end
due to a lack of viewers.
It was also a time of serious crisis in the history of Radio-Normandie. Fernand
Le Grand, always anxious to increase his station's resources, had no qualms
about renting airtime to the Centre de propagande des Républicains nationaux,
founded by Henri de Kérillis, an active right-wing politician, especially since
this organization defended ideas that the president of Radio-Normandie, in a
personal capacity, was quite ready to share.
The affair caused a scandal, and the committee of the Rouen section of the
Radio-Normandie listeners' association resigned en bloc on February 8, 1932,
explaining its decision as follows:
"The board (...), considering that when the section was founded, it set
itself the goal of artistic decentralization and regional information, that it
refrained, in complete agreement with Mr. Le Grand, from any incursion into the
political sphere, and astonished that Mr. Le Grand thought it necessary to
deviate from this policy. Le Grand thought it necessary to deviate from this
rule by making his position available to a political party for electoral
propaganda purposes, and this on the day after he had just received a 25,000
franc subsidy from the General Council (with a radical-socialist majority),
considers under these conditions that he cannot continue his collaboration and
decides, unanimously, to resign (...)".
The ensuing controversy in the regional and even national press went so far as
to call into question the station's English broadcasts and its "usurped" power.
To calm this dangerous agitation, Fernand Le Grand was forced to back down and,
on April 8, 1932, sent René Millot, president of the Rouen section that had
transformed itself into Radio-Rouen, a long, soothing missive:
"(...), I am pleased to inform you that our Board of Directors has decided to
impose an absolute ban on political broadcasts, following various incidents
caused by this type of propaganda.
Radio-Normandie thought it was doing the right thing by giving everyone the
chance to make these broadcasts. We must sincerely admit that they are premature,
to say the least. Our listeners are generally against this kind of talk show.
Radio-Normandie, wishing to avoid discord among its listeners at all costs, has
found it wise to ban all politics from the microphone.
Under these conditions, the different way of looking at things which had
separated us for a while no longer exists, and Radio-Normandie now giving you
full and complete satisfaction, and guaranteeing you that, in the future, no
decision on this subject will be taken without your agreement, we dare to hope
that it will be possible for us, as in the past, to collaborate closely and to
continue, from our Rouen auditorium, the retransmissions which it will be up to
you to organize (...)".
The following week, on April 14 1932, after two months of abstention, the Rouen
auditorium, installed in the Hôtel de Ville, resumed its Thursday broadcasts on
the Normandy station.
Meanwhile, on April 11, the first report on the Caen fair was broadcast and the
principle of creating a Caen section was decided. On April 23, Camille Blaisot,
Member of Parliament for Calvados and Minister of Public Health, christened the
new group. At the end of the evening at the Chamber of Commerce, Fernand Le
Grand is presented with an honorary wrought-iron microphone-holder, the work of
the wrought-iron artist Pommier, on behalf of the new radio-club and the
radio-electricians of Caen.
Other new sections are formed in Dieppe and Berck, then Cherbourg,
Boulogne-sur-Mer, Le Crotoy, Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme, Amiens and Calais: the
Picards, lacking a private station, join the Normans!
Increasingly, Radio-Normandie, first by force of circumstance, then by system,
became an ultra-regionalized and decentralized station... and it succeeded.
Every Thursday since July 1932, the children's hour has been hosted by Tante
Francine and Oncle Roland (Francine Lemaître and Roland Violette), and radio
plays specially written for young listeners by Dieppe's Mireille Kermor are
performed by the troupe from Fécamp's Théâtre du Petit Monde.
1933 was a year of expansion for Radio-Normandie. The station quietly increased
its power, but the installation of its new masts triggered an offensive by the
Post Office (P.T.T.).
Fernand Le Grand ordered two 100-meter self-supporting tripod masts from La
Construction Soudée, a Parisian steel construction firm, to replace his old
guyed antenna masts, which were being shaken by winter winds and eaten away by
rust and sea spray. The technicians erected them in March and April 1933. Not
only did the work not go unnoticed - a stretch of road and a small Decauville
railway had to be built to transport the elements, some of which weighed more
than a ton, to the site - but all the newspapers published the photo (an
excellent promotion) of Francine Lemaître braving the vertigo and climbing the
80 meters already erected on the first pylon. In May, the anti-Radio-Normandie
campaign begins in a number of newspapers.
Le Haut-Parleur led the way, writing:
"The construction in Fécamp of new antenna towers for Radio-Normandie has
aroused considerable emotion in Norman wireless circles. With Benedictine zeal,
the station manager is trying to convince listeners that the power will not be
increased. But he refrains from specifying the number of kilowatts currently in
use. To acknowledge the 16 kW he prints on flyers (The station's advertising
rates for England) is to confess fraud against the state. To declare a lower
wattage is to admit fraud against the advertising customers. And Mr. Le Grand
has nothing to say to protesting wirelessists in the region who complain that
Radio-Normandie prevents them from hearing other stations".
In its echo column, Le Haut-Parleur is even more scathing:
"Mr. Pellenc works a lot. They say at the ministry:
- He's the Benedictine. When he's worked hard to prevent the Saint-Agnan station
(Radio Toulouse) from going into operation, he takes it easy, turning a blind
eye to the increase in power at Radio-Normandie. They say at the Ministry:
- C'est la Bénédictine"
("Le Haut-Parleur", May 21,
1933).
And since, even in the Normandy region, Fernand Le Grand's imperial
authoritarianism earned him a few enemies, the attacks converged.
On Thursday July 6, the P.T.T. abruptly cut the lines used by Radio-Normandie to
broadcast from the decentralized studios of the listeners' sections.
At the beginning of August 1933, the newspaper France-Radio reported on
the message Fernand Le Grand had just sent to the sections of the
Radio-Normandie listeners' association :
"The management of the Société des émissions Radio-Normandie, which operates
the broadcasting station authorized to operate under the name of Radio-Fécamp,
has just sent a circular to the amateur groups and listeners of the north-west
coast, announcing that, from now on, concerts organized in the towns of the
region can no longer be broadcast by the above-mentioned station. The Post
Office administration has notified the operating company that, from now on, the
lines will no longer be rented. Furthermore," the press releases state, "the
broadcasting service has instructed Radio-Normandie to return to the 700-watt
power level at which Radio-Fécamp was authorized to operate (...)".
Section leaders, thus agitated, reacted and intervened with petitions and
pressure on all elected officials. During their October session, the general
councils of Eure and Calvados expressed the wish that telephone relations be re-established
as quickly as possible with the much-loved Radio-Normandie station.
The general council of Seine-Inférieure, for its part, renewed the substantial
subsidy it had been receiving for several years.
On November 7, the assembly of presidents of France's chambers of commerce voted
the following resolution:
"That the State renounce all direct or indirect measures leading, in law or
in fact, to a broadcasting monopoly".
But to no avail, Minister Laurent-Eynac's decision went unchallenged. In the
meantime, Radio-Normandie had not halted the implementation of its projects. A
full-fledged news department was created, and morning news was given in a first
broadcast at 7 a.m., while a final bulletin gave news from London in English
from midnight to 0.15 a.m., and news from Paris in French from 1 a.m. to 1.15
a.m.
A trailer is equipped with the Le Ruban Sonore system, using an
electro-mechanical diamond-tip engraving process on 16 mm opaque black cellulose
acetate film running at constant speed. For reproduction, we use the
photo-electric cell process for sound cinema playback. This equipment will
enable the retransmission of programs and concerts organized by chapters of the
Association des auditeurs de Radio-Normandie.
The decree of December 26, 1933 may well have been the death warrant for the
Normandy station. It stipulated that from January 15, 1934, private broadcasting
stations had to comply with the provisions of the Lucerne European Convention.
From now on, Radio-Normandie would have to broadcast on a 200-meter wavelength
or have its authorization withdrawn. However, the majority of receivers in
operation are not calibrated to broadcast on this 1,500-kilocycle frequency.
Radio-Normandie will lose 80% of its audience.
The cup is full. The day after the Christmas holidays, a delegation of deputies
and senators from the Normandy region travels to Paris to make representations
to Jean Mistler, the new Minister of Posts and Telecommunications who has
succeeded Laurent-Eynac. Among those present were Senator Charles d'Harcourt,
deputies and former ministers Camille Blaisot and Georges Bureau, their
colleagues Duschesne-Fournet, Joseph Laniel and Duke François d'Harcourt.
Jean Mistler agreed to reserve, on a provisional basis, the 206-meter wavelength
available to Radio-Normandie and promised that an increase in transmitter power
could be granted, as well as the re-establishment of P.T.T. circuits. Pending
the official texts, the Normandy station will be able to continue operating
under current conditions. Radio-Normandie is saved. Its development and the
extension of its audience will not cease until the war.
(...) Finally, Radio-Normandie continues to be both the major regional station
in Normandy and to develop its broadcasts to Great Britain, for which it is the
"first peripheral". Its founder and host, Fernand Le Grand, obtained
authorization from the Minister Georges Mandel to transfer his station from
Fécamp to Caudebec-en-Caux, on the vast plateau of Louvetot, by decree of August
7, 1935. On November 30 of the same year, the foundation stone of the new
transmitter building was officially laid, in the presence of Senator Thoumyre,
President of the General Council, Sous-Prefet Rix and the chief of staff of
Camille Blaisot, Under-Secretary of State to the President of the Council. The
Minister of Telecommunications has delegated the Inspector General of
Broadcasting, Marcel Pellenc, to preside over the luncheon attended by all the
personalities present.
A former "bête noire" of private radio stations, whose point of view the
Minister was able to change, Marcel Pellenc had the humor to end his speech as
follows:
"... And I would like to point out to you that this is perhaps an opportunity
for wireless operators to mark with a particularly grateful gesture to Mr.
Mandel, the fact that, for the first time that I have sat down at the table of a
private radio station, we are taking note of a close and fruitful collaboration
which will benefit radio within our borders, and the extension of French art
abroad".
The whole of 1936 was devoted to fitting out Radio-Normandie's new studios, in
the delightful Château de Caudebec
(today's Caudebec town
hall) on the banks
of the Seine, while on the Louvetot plateau the Norman manor house was built to
house the transmitter's machinery and staff.
As this transfer had been facilitated at the P.T.T. by a young 25-year-old
cabinet attaché, Max Brusset, who knew how to negotiate his real or supposed
influence, Fernand Le Grand hired him when the advent of the Front Populaire put
the young man out of work. Max Brusset became the post's general delegate in
Paris. It was he who brokered a deal with Paris-Soir for the newspaper to take
over Radio-Normandie's news broadcasts.
Ambitious and devious, Brusset, who had no funds of his own but who had the art
of inspiring confidence, had already put together a scheme to set up a
commercial station in Monaco
(Radio Monte Carlo).
After a first setback, unbeknownst to Fernand Le Grand, he approached Mr. G.
Shanks, director of the International Broadcasting Company, to buy out an
existing station, transfer it to the Somme, Nord or Eure and turn it into a new
English outpost. Together with various financial backers, the consortium has a
sum of 10 million to set up the operation.
Brusset approached Radio-Agen, but the latter belonged to the Trémoulet group
(Radio Toulouse)
and was therefore a private preserve.
In 1937, Max Brusset set up the Société Informations et Transmissions (S.T.I.),
headquartered at his home on boulevard Raspail in Paris. As managing director of
this company, he bought a large stake in Radio-Méditerranée, and came to an
agreement with its managing director, Pierre de Présalé, to transfer the station
to the north of France, as evidenced by a letter dated November 23, 1937, in
which Brusset writes, among other things:
"(...) We therefore propose, as future shareholders, an agreement under the
following conditions:
1° We ask to be represented on the Board of Directors in proportion to the
number of shares owned by each of our groups, i.e. 3 seats out of 7 directors.
2° Commercial policy and management of the post would be handled jointly with
you, and no major decisions would be taken without the agreement of both groups.
3° You would give us the company's formal agreement to take all steps to
transfer the station, should we be able to obtain it, with the aim of improving
the station's commercial performance"...
(Radio-Méditerranée
archives, held in part by Thérèse Le Roy de Présalé).
When Fernand Le Grand of Radio-Normandie learned of his Parisian delegate's
maneuvers, he cried treason and immediately fired him. Brusset, reserving the
right to make him pay for this break-up, set things in motion. He found a
favorable site to set up the great trading post he and his English friends were
dreaming of: the Château d'Epône-Mézières in Seine-et-Oise. A Société du Château
d'Epône was immediately set up to buy it. In December 1938, Brusset acquired a
further 3,600 shares in Radio-Méditerranée, thanks to an advance of some 3
million francs from the I.B.C. (Minutes of the S.I.T. Board meeting of December
26, 1938 (Seine Commercial Court Registry) and a letter from the I.B.C. dated
July 26, 1939, reminding him of his claim, repayable either in francs or in
Radio-Méditerranée shares).
He thus controls the majority of this company's capital. Max Brusset's plans
seemed to be on the right track, especially since in April 1938, with Georges
Mandel back in office (at the Ministry of Colonies), this skilful maneuverer had
become his deputy chief of staff, a useful position for his purposes. But
political events in Europe were gathering pace, giving Brusset the opportunity
to pull off a double coup: set up the new transmitter he wanted, and make
Fernand Le Grand pay for his ousting from Radio-Normandie. Five days after the
declaration of war, on September 8 1939, Radio-Normandie, the only one of
France's 12 private stations, was requisitioned for national defense purposes.
S.I.T., on behalf of Société du Château d'Epône, bought the Fécamp transmitter,
which had been unused since the Louvetot transmitter had been commissioned a few
months earlier.
Fernand Le Grand, of course, blames Max Brusset for the requisition of his
station. He said so vehemently at a meeting of the federation of private post
offices on September 12, 1939, where Max Brusset swore that he had never taken
any direct or indirect steps to request or hasten this requisition, which he had
only become personally aware of when it was effective and official, and to which
he was and remains categorically opposed
(Remarks reaffirmed at the
federation meeting of November 7, 1939. In P.V. of federation meetings, author's
archives).
The trouble is that a letter dated December 19, 1939, addressed by Mr. Shanks of
the International Broadcasting Company to Max Brusset, seems to prove that the
whole operation was well premeditated, judging by this extract:
"... The agreement which has just been exchanged between the I.B.C. company,
which I represent, and yourself, for the operation of the Fécamp substation,
owned by the S.I.T. company, needs to be clarified in the form of a
letter-agreement as far as your interests are concerned.
(...) It goes without saying that if, after the hostilities, the Fécamp
station's broadcasts are maintained and if, like the other private stations,
they have a commercial character, a new special arrangement will be made between
us, the present agreements constituting a minimum starting point".
(Partial archives of the
S.I.T. seized by the Germans and recovered after the war by Government
Commissioner Bouchard).
As this was not the best time to launch an advertising station, Max Brusset's
Fécamp transmitter was to be used, under the aegis of the Commissariat Général à
l'Information (Jean Giraudoux), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ambassador
Fouques Du Parc), and the Chamber's Foreign Affairs Committee (Jean Mistler),
for French foreign-language propaganda. But it was the S.I.T. that took all the
necessary steps and paid, in particular, for the subscription to the Havas
agency's dispatch service
(Correspondence
S.I.T.-Havas, from October 1939 to January 1940. Havas archives at the French
National Archives).
Issues in Czech were directed by Messrs. Mazarick and Osusky, those in Austrian
by H.H. Archduke Otto of Habsburg. The name of the editor-in-chief of the Polish
broadcasts cannot be determined from the archives.
The second act of Max Brusset's play - the plot of which he modifies as events
unfold - consists in transferring the 10 kW transmitter from Fécamp to Epône,
for technical reasons of military security. The transmitter's power was
considerably increased by the addition of specially ordered Thomson-Houston
equipment, and the station's title was changed from Radio-International-Fécamp
to Radio-International-Epône. At this point, the leaders of the federation of
private radio stations began to ask serious questions. To calm them down, Max
Brusset wrote a long letter on March 9, 1940, to Jacques Tremoulet,
vice-president of the federation, in which he forbade anyone to question his
word, and in which he specified: "The installation of the station at Epône, in
the Paris region, will be carried out in agreement with and by order of the
government, for a purpose of general interest and French propaganda, which it is
not for anyone to discuss, and whose realization cannot be attacked. This
station will not broadcast in French at any time, and will not carry any French
commercial advertising. It is intended solely for foreign-language broadcasts,
under the control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General
Commissariat for Information, at whose disposal it has been placed.
Max Brusset cleverly mentions only French advertising... he's not lying for a
second, since if the transmitter can become commercial after hostilities, it
will be destined for English advertising.
But the arrival of the Germans in June 1940 sounded the death knell for these
high hopes. They completed the Epône installations and turned it into
Radio-Calais, broadcasting to England. As for Radio-Normandie's Louvetot
transmitter, it fell into the hands of the Propaganda Abteilung, and (after an
increase in power to 60 kilowatts) became part of the Radio-Paris chain.
(...) Max Brusset doesn't give up. Since Radio Monaco was out of the question
for the time being, he turned to Radio Méditerranée in an attempt to take
control of the station and transfer it to the North, so as to broadcast to Great
Britain. After a series of maneuvers, Brusset found himself, at the time of the
debacle, with 75% of the shares in Radio Méditerranée, three companies he had
founded (Société Informations et Transmissions - S.I.T. - Partelec and Société
du Château d'Epône) and a lot of trouble. (...)
In the small world of private radio, the purge also wreaked havoc, often due
less to political morality than to business rivalries. In February 1945, for
example, Max Brusset's associate at Radio Méditerranée, Pierre Le Roy de Présalé,
and his former boss and friend at Radio-Normandie, Fernand Le Grand, were
charged with conspiring with the enemy and imprisoned. On March 9, 1946, the
deputy government commissioner, Fouquin, concluded that the committal orders
against the defendants should be dropped, and that the case should be dismissed
as a quarrel of interest rather than a problem of collaboration. But Max Brusset
insisted and further information was ordered. Another government commissioner,
Bouchard, was put in charge. His indictment of November 29, 1948 confirmed the
conclusions of his predecessor, and ended with this disillusioned sentence that
says it all: "It is useless to continue examining documents that may concern
Max Brusset... since he has not been charged."
End of chapters on Radio-Normandie
Text
taken from "Histoire de la radio en France" by René Duval - Eds Moreau 1980
|
