Anna Mounteney
Updated: Aug 23, 2022
The era of digital radio hijacking may be a 90s phenomenon, but the pirate radio scene is still hustling from tower blocks and flats across London and the rest of the UK. While mockumentaries like People Just Do Nothing may make light of pirate radio's influence on the UK's music’s evolution - pirate radio truly grounds the rich and diverse sounds of the past 60 years.
Ultimately pirate radio is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license.
Contemporarily the topic of regulation seems to preoccupy economic and political realms of discussion, however, the politics of music must be complicit in this conversation too.
Since the dawn of mass media in the UK broadcasting has been monitored and controlled - with the British Broadcasting Corporation maintaining a monopoly over the radio from inception. While radio had been used during the war, fascist memories meant that censorship had to play an integral part in mass media due to its widespread accessibility.
While the BBC catered for traditional, family-friendly tracks, entire demographics of listeners were denied their musical preferences due to the BBC's power over broadcasting; primarily rock, soul and pop were excluded from BBC radio services. Pirate radio’s influence gains political importance as a countermovement to the 60s social imprinting that media was used to instrument. The high barriers to entry of radio stunted musicians’ careers and led to the formation of rebellious groups growing collectively from musical disillusionment.
To manoeuvre bureaucratic licensing laws innovative baby boomers realised the gap in the radio market and started transmitting offshore at frequencies that onshore listeners could tune into freely and legally. The method of relocating radio to international waters was inspired by Denmark and Sweden who were already broadcasting from the seas throughout the late 50s and early 60s, for instance, stations such as Radio Nord or Radio Mercur.
The idea of radio being ‘pirate’ comes from the first British pirate radio station ‘Radio Caroline', which broadcasted from a ship off the Essex coastline. Ronan O’Rahilly may sound like some sleazy adult actor but he is accredited with bringing pirate radio to the UK, while previously an Irish nightclub owner and music manager he is now valued as an industry pioneer and inspiration for the 2009 film The Boat That Rocked with Bill Nighty and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Taking over a Danish passenger ferry and decking the ship with AM transmitters and a huge mast, Radio Caroline was equipped to provide a pop soundtrack to the 60s. The success of Radio Caroline and the financial support being given to the station from celebrities (like George Harrison) meant that pirate radio was growing into a threat to the BBC. Moreover, the popularity of Radio Caroline leads to other offshore radio stations creation like Radio Atlanta and Radio London. However, Radio Caroline’s audience was one-third the size of the BBC's Light Program in locations where the station could be retrieved, but the Light Program did not decrease in size indicating that Caroline was appealing to audiences who did not even listen to the BBCs program.
Interestingly Radio Caroline actually sank with five resident DJs onboard, luckily, they all survived and Radio Caroline continued from another ship and continues to this day.
By 1967 the growing hostility between the BBC and these pirate stations indicated radio needed restructuring. The BBC established different stations: BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, and Radio 4 – optimising pirate radios to find DJs to man them. Likewise, the UK Government adopted legislation in the Marine Broadcasting Act of 1967, which would outlaw the loophole of broadcasting in international waters. These adjustments came at a good time as international waters were becoming the wild west, with no laws to protect pirate stations rival floating stations would steal broadcasting frequencies to bargain for more listeners.
Due to these adaptations, there seemed to be no loopholes to exploit so pirate radio changed its image and saw a wave in land-based pirate broadcasting primarily in larger towns and cities. The transmitting from flats and tower blocks was especially fruitful in London and formed the basis of hip-hop, garage, jungle, grime, and punk cliques in the 80/the 90s.
Despite government crackdowns, the ethos of pirate radio continued as an unregulated medium. The 1990s Broadcasting Act meant that commercial radio was diversifying meanwhile the penalties for unlicensed broadcasting increased. The authorities and media increasingly accused pirate radios of organised crime and being involved in drug rings.
Yet with the rave scene also growing behind the scenes and rave radios following suit: happy hardcore, jungle, DnB, and UK garage were genres enabled through stations such as Rinse FM, Kool FM, Eruption FM, and Dream FM. Despite government intervention, the pirate scene always survived and adapted. Artists like Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, and The Streets owe much of their success to pirate radio.
However, with political tensions being heightened following Thatcherism and the reaction to the ecstasy-fuelled Second Summer of Love – pirate radios remained public enemy no.1. Pirate radios were viewed as an enabler and strong component of ‘problematic’ 90s youth culture, and this led to several radios being raided and shut down – including a high-profile raid on Hackney’s Rush Radio in 1993.
For those ill-served by mainstream media pirate radio was a refuge. In a time where identity politics were unfortunately not being discussed – the attack on pirate radio cannot be separated from systemic bigotry. This point remains relevant now despite contemporary progressive politics. Intersectional intolerance continues to exist through the backdoor of criminalising activity. If the mainstream media is excluding the desires and preferences of specific groups of a population this is a representation problem. When excluded groups find alternative outlets to fulfil their needs and then these outlets are criminalised – this is oppression. Echoing the war on drugs, the suppression of private radio demonstrates sustained societal oppression and ignorance.
After trying to incentivise pirate radio stations to bid for the right to broadcast at specific frequencies against one another instead the regulator 'Ofcom' was introduced in the early 2000s. This is because ‘official’ and legal radios pay a lot of money to obtain licences so they may play music without Copywrite violations, meanwhile pirate radio undermines these complexities hence its characterised antagonism.
The freedom of information act made public that following a 2015 request Ofcom had raided and seized almost 400 pirate radio set-ups in London in 2 years alone. However, the need for Ofcom demonstrated that pirate radio’s legacy will never end, and unregulated broadcasting will keep the underground music scene thriving.