Early winter morning, back-to-school week. The Cure and Daniel Balavoine as a wake-up call. Shower to the sound of Love Is in the Air. Quick detour through the news, the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the sales, the departure of Didier Deschamps, the weather, definitely not great, especially in the north of France. We don’t linger, four minutes maximum, the time for a coffee, barely a slice of toast, we continue with Indochine and their Three nights a weeka small slice of advertising, places Whitney Houston. While the general stations wake up their listeners with chronicles, interviews, debates, political or economic guests who describe a world on the brink of the abyss, Radio Nostalgie offers a score of its own, made of “music and good humor” . Song, song and more song. But not just any one. Essentially drawn from the best-known titles of the 1980s. And it works. Getting better and better.
The grumpy people, who pride themselves on musical trendiness or are suffering from acute snobbery, hold their noses at the mention of a radio with a name that smacks of the France of the past. But the numbers are there, relentless. Every day, “Nosta”, as Xavier Laissus Pasqualini, its boss for twelve years, calls it, brings together 3.6 million listeners and Philippe and Sandy’s morning show, 1.4 million. The slight inflection of the last Médiamétrie measurement (-50,000 listeners compared to the same period of 2023) does not change much: Nostalgie is the second largest music channel in France, just behind NRJ. “In a world where players are multiplying, where audiences are dividing more than they are increasing, it is remarkable that a historic media manages to build an audience,” applauds Frank Lanoux, history of the FM band, who coordinated the Radio Lovers Dictionary (Plon).
Anything but “Parisian”
In recent years, Nostalgie has been able to capture the desires of the times, between a thirst for lightness and a need for proximity. It doesn’t matter that its studios are at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, it doesn’t matter that it is the first in Ile-de-France, Nostalgie wants to be anything but “Parisian”. Xavier Laissus Pasqualini repeats it over and over again, in every interview he gives. In his mouth, the term “Parisian” has no geographical scope, it designates those who are “far from the daily life of listeners”. Nostalgie has thirty local stalls. And to perfect its image as a “street corner radio”, its hosts, like Philippe and Sandy, are very Mr. and Mrs. Everyman. Since January 10, Jean-Luc Reichmann, familiar television face of Z’amours and 12 shots of noonalso occupies a slot there every Friday. Watchword for everyone: simplicity and conviviality.
On the air, the hosts wish good luck to Paul and Lucie, who are “personal helpers in Maine-et-Loire and get up early”, they thank John and Lindsay who, “from the four corners of France “, follow the radio on social networks. Between two games allowing you to win concert tickets or a dinner with a star, listeners are invited to talk about what put them in a good mood at school. The subject is risk-free, the anecdotes numerous. We talk about going to the bakery for snack time, Madame Ferris, the kind lady who served in the canteen. We make fun (gently) of the one who liked to wipe the board with the old moldy sponge, we talk about skipping rope and elastic, the smell of the mimeograph machine and the pot of white glue. The “Proust madeleine” effect works in full force. On the other side of the post, we find ourselves smiling.
International instability, lack of political visibility in France, distressing news stories… Nostalgia embodies a familiar and reassuring world in a universe that is not. With a modest ambition: to get its listeners to hum a refrain evocative of the good moments of their lives. By deciding, a few years ago, to rejuvenate its musical selection to exclude titles from the 1960s or 1970s and concentrate on the 1980s, the radio found the martingale. For the fifty-somethings who grew up in those years, a song by Mylène Farmer, Jean-Jacques Goldman or Queen revives the memory of a first love, a group of friends or a legendary concert. The first measurements of Midnight Demonsof Crazy night orEve, get up awaken images of a wedding, a birthday or a summer evening. We forget that the 1980s were also those of the emergence of AIDS, mass unemployment and the first attacks, leaving only sepia photos of a happy time, one where the family was still united, where everything was still possible, a time of carelessness that a few notes were enough to revive.
An antenna with the sweet taste of childhood
Because fifty-somethings, now parents, have imposed their soundtrack on their children, Nostalgia is also the frequency best shared within family and friends. The brand happily goes beyond the boundaries designated for it within the NRJ group, to which it has belonged since the end of the 1990s. On paper, the distribution of roles is clear: at NRJ, the young audience, at Chérie FM, that of young adults, to Nostalgia, that of adults. But with the exception of those allergic to advertising, Nostalgie appeals to all segments of the population: 13% of its listeners are under 30 and 35% under 50.
Proof that it is a family radio station, it experiences a clear resurgence of success in summer, during holidays and evenings that drag on around the barbecue, but also on December 24 or 31 with streaming listening that doubles or triples for New Year’s Eve. It doesn’t matter that the youngest didn’t grow up with it Confidence for confidence, Libertine, Sweet Dreams Or I’m Still Standing – the four most programmed songs on the air -, it doesn’t matter whether they like them or hate them on an artistic level, the main thing is that they have the sweet taste of childhood, hits sung to death- head on the road to the holidays and the balls of July 14.
Radio is not the only one affected by the return to popularity of nostalgia. At the initiative of those who see a commercial interest in it or who want to be at the forefront of fashion or culture, the craze for vintage pastilles from the National Audiovisual Institute, the success of rebroadcasts TV shows like Le Fair Price Or THE Bigdil or the attempts to revive the R5 or the 4L in an electric version testify to a renewed attachment to the world of yesterday. A surprising development for an often criticized notion. “In the 17th century, the word was created to designate the illness which struck those who left their spatial anchorage. Today, in a world of technological progress, it is frequently perceived as regressive, as if out of time,” notes the historian. Thomas Dodman, professor at Columbia University in New York and author of Nostalgia, story of a deadly emotion (Threshold).
Used by the most conservative politicians, like Donald Trump and his slogan Make America Great Again, sent back as a criticism to the working classes who would not understand the meaning of history, nostalgia is still repellent. “But it evolves, it is protean. Psychologists say, for example, that it is a positive emotion, a useful reframing for people who feel lost,” continues Thomas Dodman. Remaining popular without coming across as reactionary, idealizing the past without sinking into the harmful “Ah, it was better before!”, it is this delicate balance that Radio Nostalgie has been trying for several years. And, undoubtedly, it’s great for her…
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