Goodbye France Bleu Azur, hello Ici Azur. This Monday, January 6, 2025, the Radio France group station adopts a new name, just like the 44 antennas of the national network.
Behind this modification, an intention: that of offering a 360 media, uniting radio, television and web. In the climate of political instability that has reigned in France in recent months, a broader and contested reform of public broadcasting was considered and then put on hold.
So, in the meantime, the editorial staff is trying to best support this first stage of transformation, as Nicolas Mérou, director of Ici Azur, explained to us in detail.
How did you prepare your listeners to get used to this new name?
We've been talking about it on air for two months, both through members of the team, but also with personalities from the department. We explained that the name would change, but that the promise made at the start of the school year, with local news, music and good humor, remained the same. And then Ici, it was already the name of our joint app with France 3. These changes always cause a little concern, but we are still quite happy to get rid of the France Bleu brand.
Why then?
Because there was a bit of a “seniors’ radio” feel to it, a bit out of date. There, we have the idea of offering something more lively, more global. And above all, we say what we do: we talk about here.
Can we expect anything new in the programs this month?
We are not going to modify the grid, apart from a few usual adjustments. But since September, we have decided to offer even more premises. From Monday to Sunday, we took control of the afternoons, which until then were national. We are also in the process of structuring ourselves to produce more videos and digital content, by reorganizing our skills internally. We are also setting up a video studio so that we can easily create other formats with our columnists and guests.
The collaboration with France 3 had already started a few years ago…
Yes, in Nice, we were the first station in the France Bleu network to experiment with morning shows filmed with France 3, in January 2019. There is a real desire to say that we are starting with a new editorial strategy.
With the arrival of Ici Azur, how is this collaboration supposed to evolve?
We try to work together as much as possible, within the limits of our two companies. Every month, we check in with the editor-in-chief of France 3, based in Antibes. We think about common themes, to see how we can approach the same theme over the course of a day, on radio, on TV and digitally. We also sometimes create duplexes for the morning. And for events like the Nice carnival or the passing of the Olympic flame in the department, teams from France 3 came to support us, in order to be able to host a morning show outdoors. Gradually, we will also make mutual progress on the preparation of partnerships.
In the various editorial offices of France 3 and France Bleu across the country, this merger has caused a lot of fear, particularly regarding degraded working conditions and calls for strikes. Was it different with you?
This climate was the same. When you have worked for a brand for a long time, there is necessarily an emotional dimension. And then you wonder what the company will become, what your own job will become. The political context didn't really help us. So we have to explain, we have to try to convince. By affirming a real desire to say that we are starting on a new editorial strategy, by being as coherent as possible for our audiences.
