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PARIS — In January 2024, La 1ère Musique (The 1st Music) launched a network of online stations powered by RCS software dedicated to Indigenous music from its overseas territories. Véronique Polomat, editorial director of the France Télévisions Pôle Outre-mer (Overseas Division) and her team developed La 1ère Musique. “We created an online multimedia ecosystem presenting five live streams dedicated to overseas music: a primary overseas stream, with multiple overseas musical genres, a Caribbean stream, a Pacific stream, an Indian Ocean stream, and a World stream, which combines music from French territories as well as from the rest of the world,” says Polomat.
“In addition to La 1ère Musique, we produce multimedia audio content (radio, TV and online) for nine French territories and arrange programming, promotion and archiving. At our Parisian site, we have reorganized our activity to also coordinate the regular broadcasting of seven of the nine channels,” she adds.
Musical heritage and programming
In addition to its five live streams, La 1ère Musique also produces weekly podcasts and playlists by musical genre, including zouk, gwo ka, jazz, reggae, kaneka, debaa, mayola, biguine, m’godro, rock, Polynesian polyphonic singing and the music of French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, off the coast of Newfoundland, a blend of rock and Acadian music. The objective is to promote the different Indigenous musical genres in each of the nine territories across the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean or the Pacific, to tell their stories and show their influence on all kinds of music. An example is zouk, a popular dance music associated mainly with the French Antilles, and now renowned worldwide and integrated by contemporary artists.
Each of La 1ère Musique’s four presenters represents a specific territory — Délia Coliné, the Caribbean; Teanuanua Paraurahi, Polynesia and the Pacific; Natacha Moustoifa, Mahoran and the Indian Ocean; and James Odé, La 1ère Musique Monde.
La 1ère Musique also records and edits audio and video shows for mainland France and overseas territories and makes them available to overseas broadcasters.
The five live streams can be heard on France Télévisions Outre-mer La 1ère portal, on Deezer and Radioplayer and the thematic playlists are on Spotify. The podcasts are broadcast on different platforms, primarily on the Outre-mer La 1ère portal, Spotify and Deezer.
La 1ère Musique also publishes content on its Facebook, YouTube and Instagram profiles.
RCS tools
Branding company 21 Juin Production, already working for Pôle Outre-mer’s previous online station, created La 1ère Musique’s identity toward the end of 2023.
“To develop La 1ère Musique’s new music offering, we relied on the expertise of DBCT Consulting’s Cyrille Tarenne as well as Dominique Bourron, La 1ère Musique’s newly appointed programming and music manager,” says Polomat.
RCS automation software powers La 1ère Musique’s five streams. The station’s technical department switched to the cloud for its new live streams and opted for two primary RCS tools, the GSelector scheduler and Zetta automation.
“Music programming with GSelector simply connects from our web browsers to Selector2Go in the RCS Cloud, and we can fully operate and maintain the five stations, including updating the playlists,” says Polomat. “Operating our playout by Zetta, via Zetta2Go, we can digitize the titles, insert the linking points, and check the program lineup and the broadcast.”
Everything is managed online, and the programming team can code new audio files and insert them into the proper flows via Zetta2Go.
Because all production is virtual through RCS, La 1ère Musique teams don’t have to rely on technical operations and can focus on programming
“We worked in September 2023 on La 1ère Musique’s five digital streams, whose content is entirely hosted in the RCS Cloud,” says David Chevalier, head of business development at RCS Europe.
“The RCS channel and broadcast system offers a common library, so La 1ère Musique can easily manage its five streams’ music categories,” adds Chevalier. Because all production is virtual through RCS, La 1ère Musique teams do not have to waste valuable time on mundane manual work but can focus on programming.
Production and projects
La 1ère Musique’s audio music offering is part of a pact signed by France Télévisions with the Ministries of Culture and Overseas Territories to help artists from overseas territories far from mainland France gain visibility and make a living from their music.
La 1ère Musique also produces many online podcasts such as “Les Muses,” “La 1ère Vibe,” “Balance L’instru” and “Music Océan,” along with the music-enhanced literary podcast “Traversée,” focusing on overseas authors such as Maryse Condé and Patrick Chamoiseau. In addition, there are podcasts about DJs (“DJ Set”), musical tales and legends (“Superstitions”) and the Olympic Games (“Music Olympic”). These are all available on the Outre-mer La 1ère website.
Among other projects, La 1ère Musique plans to soon broadcast its playlists and podcasts onboard Air Caraïbes planes, which serve all Caribbean destinations and on French Bees, which serves the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
The author has worked in the radio industry for over 30 years. She has held posts as both a producer and presenter for French stations, such as Radio Notre Dame and Radio France’s France Culture. In addition to being involved with academic research and EU consulting in Brussels, she specializes in print journalism.
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