Few internet radio stations can trace their name back a hundred years. Le Poste Parisien can. The brand first went on air on March 30, 1924, and grew into one of the biggest private stations in France before the German occupation of Paris silenced it on June 13, 1940, according to a history of the original station.
A Name That Kept Coming Back
The original Poste Parisien built its reputation on popular entertainment, running game shows, serials and live audience broadcasts under directors Roger Sallard and Jean Grünebaum, who added a dedicated jazz orchestra to the lineup in 1934. After the wartime shutdown, the name resurfaced decades later on Paris FM airwaves from 1981 to 1994. When it disappeared a second time, the brand's trademark eventually lapsed into the public domain, leaving it available for anyone willing to revive it.
A Sound Engineer Brings It Back a Third Time
That's exactly what happened in 2023, when Pierre Denjean, an entrepreneur with more than three decades in sound and lighting through his company Hit Music, relaunched Le Poste Parisien as a fully internet-only station, according to coverage of the relaunch. With no FM or DAB+ frequency, the new version runs entirely on its own website, app and streaming infrastructure, self-financed and free to listen to.
From an 80s Throwback to a Jazz Station
The revived station's format has already evolved once. It launched leaning into 80s and 90s nostalgia, but Le Poste Parisien's current lineup has shifted to what it now calls "100% Jazz," pulling tracks from 1950 to the present day. The station has also revived its old tagline, "la station française que le monde écoute," the French station the world listens to, a claim that fit a national broadcaster in the 1930s and now describes a niche, internet-only jazz stream instead.
Tune In
For a station carrying a name with real weight in French broadcasting history, now applied to a modern jazz format, Le Poste Parisien is worth a listen on Radio Shuffle.