Current Pirate Radio
AL89
Posts: 2,170 Forum Member
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My mother always had the radio on when I was a child and I really remember the sound of Radio London. As my interest in radio grew I understood the reasoning for it and with help from the Pirates of the 60s radio has evolved (for better or worse)into what we have today> What I don't understand with the huge range of music and radio that is legally available (other than being quite sociable and maybe slightly egotistical) what is the point of pirate radio today?
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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/jimmy-saviles-crimes-are-rooted-in-pirate-radio-9570462.html
There is a lengthy list of reasons, some of which are genuine and deserve our sympathy. For instance if there is an inner-city community that has no ready way of expressing itself or networking between the members. People do other things than sitting typing on Facebook all day, so a radio channel is fairly essential. Fortunately, these communities stand a good chance of becoming legal, but the official process is incrediby lengthy.
On the music side, you mentioned the original Radio London 266, "Big L". It was based around a concept from a U.S. station, and I would describe it as a regional commercial station. Had it been allowed to continue, it would have been a huge success. A tragedy that it didn't happen.
But there were other types of music stations too amongst the offshore stations of the 1960s that we enjoyed. Caroline, for instance, was "free radio" in that the presenters, who of course produced their own shows, chose a substantial part of the playlist for themselves, and were able to play what was desirable, rather than what was commercially dictated. The style of presentation was relaxed, and there has been a long tradition ever since of Caroline in particular playing album tracks. More knowledgeable people about Caroline will no doubt add more, but I still have my Free Radio Association pencil...
Relating that to the present, if you read this forum you'll notice that there is a lot of criticism of carbon-copy playlists on our present batch of commercial stations, with very little real choice for the true music fan. Hence some unlicenced stations exist to give a real choice in music listening.
Fortunately there is some good local radio around that does play a good selection of music - in the area that I live for instance, we have the two Sunshine stations in Hereford and Ludlow, and us community of listeners are very faithful in supporting them. But these stations are so few and far between, that there is the likelihood of unlicenced stations wanting to fill a void.
A really good source of information and discussion is in the magazine "Radio User", available in most newsagents such as WH Smith. Towards the back of the mag is the "Free Radio" column, authored by "Oscar". He discusses the issues that you're interested in, so take a look at his article.
Thanks for raising a very interesting subject - there should be some interesting replies !
Of those, some eventually became legal (London Greek Radio, Sunrise Radio). Some morphed into slightly (or not so slightly) different legal stations: Kiss FM, Jazz FM, Xfm. But now there are pirate stations for other communities, such as Turkish and African. There are stations playing more specialist dance music than you'll hear on daytime radio, and sometimes there's some good modern jazz that beats anything Jazz FM plays in the daylight hours. There are also some rather odd religious rants and phone-ins.
So the pirates now are still filling gaps left by the legal stations. Some of them still play music you won't hear on legal radio, which is arguably a failing of our licensing system.
AL89, you state "huge range of music and radio that is legally available".
There are many, me included, who see this as a range dictated by those that sell advertising. This does not cover all ethnic/age or any other minority groups.
Whilst the huge range that you refer to will placate the 'average' listener in the group, most likely to be influenced by adverts, there will always be those who want something else.
A business associate, in radio and TV advertising told me that the bulk of this is aimed at females in the 30 - 45 age group, because they are more likely to change their purchasing habits as a result of ads.
My age group, 60+, are much harder to influence, so money is not spent on radio adverts to this age group and, therefore, less programming to suit that audience.
The end result is very little commercial music radio that is appreciated by the majority of 60+ and those that persevere with listening will appreciate some pirates and will also seek internet radio.
I listen to a lot of pirate radio, when I listen to the likes of Radio1 or other stations like that at night it still doesn't focus on new and upcoming acts its mainly still those in the public eye or they seem to stick to certain producers, bands etc. The only station I listen to a lot is Rinse FM, they used to be pirate and are the only station playing predominently dance music all day 24/7 for young people and that is why they are very different. The fact they were a pirate shows why they felt it was essential to do that because even in the 90s it was worse! many stations would touch jungle, drum n bass and other such genres but it was only the explosion of rave in the charts that was when commercial stations HAD to wise up and add in dance music to their playlists, this was down to pirate pushing the sounds thus boosting record sales, the producers and DJ's would push them at raves on the underground scene and that was pretty much the rise of dance/rave music.