Retirement soon for Philippe Bouvard: the tireless 94-year-old journalist, who still writes a weekly column on RTL, announced this Sunday that he would cut the microphone in January, on the occasion of his sixtieth anniversary on the air, “a world record,” according to the station. “There is a temptation, which is not a temptation of laziness, but a temptation of record, it is to go until January 1st, it will not be bad enough, and then to listen to the others and to be silent”explained Philippe Bouvard this Sunday on RTL, in reference to the retirement that he refused for a long time.
“Because on January 1, I will have established the double record that I hoped for, that is to say 60 years of radio and 60 years of RTL” justified the one who started in 1965 at Radio Luxembourg, which became RTL in 1966, before launching “Les Grosses têtes” there in 1977 and making it the most listened to program in France. “I would really like to have this one (this record, editor’s note), because, I won’t hide it from you, I really liked the radio, and the radio gave it back to me”added the journalist who looks back on moments that forged his career in “Les portraits de Philippe Bouvard”, Sunday at 6:40 a.m. on RTL.
His career “revolutionized radio”
In a press release, the M6 group’s radio station praised its emblematic figure and his “world record” of “the host who has done the most seasons on a station”. His career has “revolutionized radio”, estimated the president of RTL, Régis Ravanas, quoted in the press release. “We understand his choice, but (…) Philippe knows that he belongs forever to the RTL family.”he argued.
The program director, Gauthier Hourcade, paid tribute to a “erudite pioneer of humor on the airwaves” at the“quick-witted, independent and impertinent”. After 37 years of hosting “Grosses têtes”, Philippe Bouvard reluctantly left his place in 2014 to Laurent Ruquier, called to rejuvenate the show, which he has “never listened to since”, as he explained in December at Var-Matin.
RTL then entrusted him with “Allô Bouvard”, broadcast on weekends until the summer of 2020. Philippe Bouvard has also written a column in the monthly VSD for four years and is preparing a 70th book, titled “Retirement? Not the end of life, but the beginning of a new existence”, according to his interview with Var-Matin.
