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Brief History of Pirate Radio

Pirate radio in the UK is nothing new. Pirate radio gets its romantic name not just from its flouting of government restrictions on the airwaves, but from its early days in the 1960's, when unlicensed stations broadcast from ships anchored at sea just outside British territorial waters, or from derelict Army & Navy forts on the Thames estuary in London.

By 1966, Radio London claimed over eight million listeners, and Radio Caroline over six million, pirate dj's were cult stars and stations had their own fan clubs. But this first golden age of pirate radio came to an abrupt end when Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labour government instituted the Marine Broadcasting offences act in August 1967, making it unlawful to operate, finance or aid in any way, an unlicensed station. When the stations were "sunk", the public demand was massive, and the BBC launched its own national pop station, Radio One, and recruited many pirate dj's, such as Tony Blackburn, John Peel, Johnny Walker and Dave Lee Travis.

In the early eighties, pirate radio entered its second boom period, with the rise of black music stations like Horizon, JFM (Jazz Funk Music), Dread Broadcasting Corporation and LWR, specializing in the soul, reggae and funk, music that Radio One marginalized. But the nautical connotations of "pirate" had faded; the new pirates broadcast not just from the mainland, but from tower blocks in the heart of the metropolis of cities and towns across the whole of the UK.

As the Government closed loopholes in the law and increased the penalties, the illegal stations grew ever more cunning in their struggle to outwit the anti pirate agents of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The invention of the micro link (a method of relaying the station's signal to a distant transmitter) made it harder for the DTI to trace and raid the illegal stations studios. The result was an explosion of piracy; by 1989-90, there were over 600 stations nationwide, and 60 in the London area alone. And by 1989, a new breed of rave pirates - Sunrise, Centre force, Dance FM, Fantasy - had joined the ranks of established black dance stations like LWR and Kiss.

As in the sixties, the Government responded with the double whammy of suppression and limited permission. In a weird echo of the pardons offered to buccaneers and corsairs in the seventeenth century, pirate stations were offered an amnesty if they went off the air, and a chance to apply for one of the bonanza of licenses being made available as part of the Conservatives government's policy of "freeing" the airwaves. LWR and Kiss closed down voluntarily but only Kiss won a license.

The legitimization of Kiss FM, in combination with an ultra tough Broadcasting act of January 1990, reduced pirate activity to its lowest since 1967. But in 1992, the London pirates resurged massively, as a crucial component of hardcore raves underground infrastructure, alongside home-studio recording, indie labels, white label releases and specialist record stores. Abandoning the last vestiges of mainstream pop radio protocol, the new 'hardcore pirates sounded like raves on the air': rowdy, chaotic, with the dj's voiceover replaced by a raucous rave style mc (master of ceremonies), and with a strong emphasis on audience participation (enabled by the spread of the mobile phone, which made the studio location impossible to trace by the DTI).

Despite the governments fresh package of penalties (the threat of unlimited fines, prison sentences of up to two years and the confiscation of all studio equipment - including the dj's precious record collection), 1992-3 saw the biggest boom in the history of radio piracy. Undeterred, the pirate attitude was, in the words of a track by Rum and Black - "F**K the legal stations".

Throughout the 1990's, pirate radio continued to boom in many, if not all, UK cities and towns. The DTI's methods of detection of the pirates became better, and soon they had the means to detect the Micro link used by the pirates to broadcast their signal from their main studio. Although the risk was greatly increased, pirate radio stations continued the struggle to bring the sounds of the underground, that of which the legal channels of broadcasting were ignoring.

By the turn of the millennium, pirate radio was still 'the' place to listen to music from un-signed/independent artists, and from dj's direct from the cities, towns and communities they broadcast from, as well as existing long standing artists who saw pirate radio as the perfect outlet for their particular area of music, again, which was mainly ignored by the legal channels of broadcasting. It was also the place that gave the 'street' real time information of club nights, gatherings, community projects and charity events. Also at this time, the boom of home internet, and the reduction in prices of a broadband connection, saw pirate radio become global, with many stations going 'live', broadcasting their signal via the net to anywhere in the world, as well as over the FM. Stations were now getting phone calls, text messages and emails from listeners all over the UK and the rest of the world.

The governments’ response was to introduce RSL (Restricted Service Licence) stations to areas of the UK that had previously been served by pirate stations. These stations were 'designed' to replace pirate stations, and even 'employed' pirate radio dj's to give it that pirate feel. These stations were flawed from the start for many reasons, but mostly due to the fact that the stations only had a legal 'short term licence', and only operated for a month at a time, before being taken off air. Just as they had a few people interested, the station came to the end of its month licence and was removed from the airwaves, most of which never returned to the FM. Also, the fact they were operating on low power transmitters, meant that unless you were within a couple of miles of the stations studio, you could not hear their broadcasts anyway.

While the pirate stations of the 1960's were number 1, pirate radio stations in the UK were helping to make number 1's in the UK charts, with artists such as So Solid Crew, Craig David, Ms Dynamite, Dizzy Rascall and many many more, breaking down the established order to make hit records that crossed over to the mainstream. Well known pirate dj's in the UK such as Trevor Nelson, Tim Westwood, Judge Jules, Pete Tong, Goldfinger, and many more, have since made it to legal radio and TV. in the UK. And nearly all the dj's playing on Radio One's sister station 1xtra, have their roots in pirate radio. All these artists and dj's, and many more since, have highlighted the fact that without pirate radio, they would never have made it to the point where they are today.