Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française

Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF – French Radio and Television Broadcasting) was the French national public broadcasting organization established on 9 February 1949 to replace the post-war "Radiodiffusion Française" (RDF), which had been founded on 23 March 1945 to replace Radiodiffusion Nationale (RN), created on 29 July 1939. It was replaced in its turn, on 26 June 1964, by the notionally less-strictly government controlled Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF), which itself lasted until the end of 1974.

RTF was both state-owned and state-controlled. With a budget set by the French National Assembly under the direction of the Ministry of Information, all of its spending and investment plans had to be directly agreed by the Minister of Information and the Minister of Finance.

Alain Peyrefitte, Minister of Information, speaking in a debate in the National Assembly on 26 May 1964, described RTF as "the government in every Frenchman's dining-room" – La RTF, c'est le gouvernement dans la salle à manger de chaque Français.

A public monopoly on broadcasting in France had been established with the formation of Radiodiffusion Française (RDF) in 1945. RDF was renamed "Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française" (RTF) in 1949 and ORTF in 1964. From the beginning, the public broadcaster experienced fierce competition from the "peripheral stations": French-speaking stations aimed at the French public but transmitting on longwave from neighbouring countries, such as Radio Monte Carlo (RMC) from Monaco, Radio Luxembourg (later RTL) from Luxembourg, and Europe 1 from Germany (exceptionally, in 1974, RMC was allowed to set up a transmitter on French territory).

RTF's head offices were located in the avenue de Friedland in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Its television studios and technical buildings were at 13–15 rue Cognacq-Jay.

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