Tiako BeTiako Be

The station traces itself back to 1993 and a programme called Ravinala, broadcast on FM; it became Tiako Be in 2012, when the whole thing moved online and started running around the clock. Everything it plays is Malagasy, and most of what it says is said by the diaspora: the shows go out live from Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille and Nantes, presented by people who left the island and kept the records, for an audience sitting at both ends of that journey.

The catalogue is regional rather than national — salegy from the north, tsapiky and kilalaky from the south-west, tropical variety, contemporary Malagasy pop and whatever is new in the urban scene. Around it sit a dedications desk with every request logged and named, a service for identifying a half-remembered track, and podcasts from Malagasy programmes on French community radio.