It’s a page of RTL that will turn. This Sunday, June 23, Philippe Bouvard, the iconic radio host, announced to listeners that he would retire in January 2025, at 94 years old. But, before leaving the air, he wants to beat “a radio record».
On RTL, Philippe Bouvard, on the air since 1965, explained: “There is a temptation, which is not a temptation of laziness but a temptation of record: it is to go to January 1 (2025 editor’s note), then to listen to others and to remain silent (… ) 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. It’s a radio record (…) I really liked the radio, and the radio made it good for me“, he assured.
30,000 articles and 6,000 TV shows
A pillar of RTL where he has worked since the 1960s, his name remains attached to that of “Grosses têtes”, a program he launched in 1977, making it one of the most listened to in France. When in September 2014, after 37 years at the helm, he had to give up his place to Laurent Ruquier, called to rejuvenate the show, Bouvard, close to 85 years old, took it badly. “It was not me who made the decision (to stop) but I accepted it. The announcement of this abandonment, because it is one, is heartbreaking“, he then confided.
Eight years later, the wound poorly closed, he confided that he would have been incapable of stopping “the Big Heads” on his own. The station then entrusted him with “Allô Bouvard”, broadcast on weekends, which ended in the summer of 2020. Tireless and always up to date with current events, despite his failing eyesight and hearing, he still wants to 94 years a page in the VSD magazine, as well as a Sunday column on RTL.
Philippe Bouvard has always been hyperactive: 30,000 articles, 6,000 TV shows, he listed at the beginning of 2013 in the daily Nice Matin with which he collaborated. On television, from 1982 to 1987, he presented “Le petit théâtre de Bouvard” on Antenne 2, a sketch show where young actors tried their hand, several of whom were successful (Muriel Robin, Pascal Legitimus, Mimie Mathy, Chevallier and Laspalès…).
Born on December 6, 1929 in Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne) to a couple of small traders, Philippe Bouvard joined Le Figaro in 1952 as an errand boy, after a short stint at the Journalists’ Training Center. He climbed the ranks, signed the society column and became director of Parisian services.
