June 19, 1950: A World First in Stereo on French Radio

This is a new process that was presented on 19 June 1950 to listeners of the French Broadcasting Service. An evening programme was aired in stereophonic sound. But to enjoy this three-dimensional audio, one had to own two sets: one tuned to La Chaîne Parisienne for the left ear and a second to Paris-Inter for the right ear. A week earlier, the new technique had been shown to the press in the gardens of the Test Club. And it was not a concert that had been recorded for the occasion but a play.

It was a work by Théophile Gautier, “Une larme du diable,” a kind of mystery composed by the poet in 1839 and adapted by Jean Forest, notes L’Aurore. René Clair introduced the piece. The cast included top names such as Gérard Philipe, Danièle Delorme, Marcelle Derrien, Robert Arnoux, Pasquali, Jean Toulout, and others. On that occasion the radio trialled a stereophonic broadcasting method that would give sounds their full relief. The new technique was developed by two radio technicians, Messrs José Bernhart and Jean-Wilfrid Garrett.

A two-track tape recorder

José Bernhart, head of the sound-recording department at the French Broadcasting Service, and Jean-Wilfrid Garrett, the broadcast director, created a system that allows recording on a two-track tape recorder. That is what constituted a world first on Monday 19 June 1950 from 8:50 p.m., an experiment later repeated the following October by Radio Suisse Romande.

The stereophonic effect was already well known. Experiments had been carried out by broadcasting each channel on a separate frequency, by the BBC in 1925, by Latvian radio in 1930, and by Berlin radio in 1931.

A stereo concert during the Occupation

In France, on 23 February 1944, a stereo concert was organised by Radiodiffusion nationale, Vichy’s radio service, at the Palais de Chaillot. It was not broadcast over the airwaves but a few privileged listeners were able to hear it in the bar. Le Journal reports that the French apparatus enabling this new recording method is the work of Mr Joseph Cordonnier, engineer and head of the studies department at Radiodiffusion nationale. Multiple microphones were placed appropriately throughout the orchestra, each connected to a different amplification chain and each feeding a separate receiver.

The June 1950 experiment does not mean that “sound with depth” would immediately become standard on radio. Stereo would first become familiar to the general public through cinema before returning to radio via frequency modulation.