The story of pirate radio
The rise and fall of the British broadcast buccaneers
The mid 60s witnessed a brief golden age of pirate radio, which saw at least a dozen floating stations transmitting radio signals to the UK.
The mid 60s witnessed a brief golden age of pirate radio, which saw at least a dozen floating stations transmitting radio signals to the UK. While the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) busied itself with addressing the nation’s eardrums with gardening tips, radio dramas, news read by men and — if you were lucky — the occasional pop song, the heroes of pirate radio set up shop on ships just outside British territorial waters, broadcasting a powerful signal back into the UK and even across Europe. By positioning themselves just beyond British borders, these pirate pioneers managed to circumvent UK laws that prohibited private radio transmissions.
Some of the most well-known pirate stations to make their name from the deck of a repurposed rig included Radio Atlanta, Wonderful Radio London, Radio Invicta, Radio Sutch, Radio Essex and Radio 270, as well as Radio Caroline, the pirate station that provided the inspiration and basic premise for the 2009 comedy blockbuster, The Boat That Rocked. And so, pirate radio was born. Sadly, its peak lasted only three short years — from 1964 to 1967 — but in that time, the freewheeling, swashbuckling pirate broadcasts, many of which were staffed by Americans, livened up the stale UK airwaves and promoted a wide musical and cultural diversity to a nation that that was sorely in need of it.
“Into the void steamed the pirate radio entrepreneurs”
Since its inception in the early 1920s, British terrestrial radio was noncommercial, state-owned and highly conformist with the establishment view. It was not there to be controversial. By the early ‘60s, the BBC’s three official stations, the Home Service, Light Programme, and Third Programme, which battled to quench the thirst generated by an increasingly broad range of listener tastes. Into the void steamed the pirate radio entrepreneurs, bringing with them not only a wider diversity of material but also sponsored shows and some slick advertising opportunities for brands and organisations looking to flatten their way into the fresh/current/relevant market.
The pirate stations certainly lived up to their swaggering name. Pirate radio staff would often share quarters on the old, refurbished boats for weeks at a time, creating a communal hothouse atmosphere and a rebellious romanticism that rang truest with teens and young adults who were resonating with those same sentiments at the time.
However, in 1967, the British government got its act together and passed the Marine Broadcast Offences Act, which effectively closed the once gaping loophole in UK laws and (perhaps somewhat oxymoronically) outlawed all pirate stations for good. Although the government succeeded in killing off the pirates of the airwaves in the end, the BBC launched Radio 1 as a gesture of goodwill to the youth, as well as those who’d listened to pirate radio religiously, and they manned one of its first broadcasts with none other than pirate radio veteran, Tony Blackburn. Today, pirate radio lives on in the memories, hearts and imaginations of listeners all over the world.
