40 years ago: Pirate Radio RIP
Fourty years ago on the August 14th, 1967 the party of party poopers, Labour, introduced the Marine Broadcasting Act which effectively banned the offshore pirate radio industry from broadcasting subversive material to the nations youth, thereby handing back a monopoly to the state broadcaster, the BBC. The UK Number One in the singles chart was the seriously subversive Scott McKenzie with San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)
The end result was that the BBC, who has never missed an opportunity to keep in tune with and brainwash the future generation of licence tax payers, decided to launch Radio 1 and kicked off on Sept 30th with Flowers in the Rain by the Move spun by Tony Blackburn. The initial line-up of DJs proved to far more destructive to the nations ears than even the wildest dreams of the BBC board of Governors, although a couple, such as John Peel and Kenny Everett did manage to sneak through the interview process.
And so the charade of Radio 1 continues to this day costing the poor beleaguered licence tax payer £42.8m in 2006/7 alone. In the build-up to the Radio 1 40 year anniversary, I expect a whole load of sycophantic nonsense exaggerating its own self importance and role in society. The fact of the matter is that commercial radio would have quite happily provided a similar if not better service than Radio 1 at a far lower cost; comically the commercial sector would even have paid money to use the Radio 1 airwares. The only role that Radio 1 has fulfilled in 40 years is in consuming the oxygen which would have allowed the commercial sector to flourish. Admittedly, they have also provided a free of charge promotion service to the record industry, but I don’t think in the grand scheme of things this is where public funds should be allocated either.
The end result was that the BBC, who has never missed an opportunity to keep in tune with and brainwash the future generation of licence tax payers, decided to launch Radio 1 and kicked off on Sept 30th with Flowers in the Rain by the Move spun by Tony Blackburn. The initial line-up of DJs proved to far more destructive to the nations ears than even the wildest dreams of the BBC board of Governors, although a couple, such as John Peel and Kenny Everett did manage to sneak through the interview process.
And so the charade of Radio 1 continues to this day costing the poor beleaguered licence tax payer £42.8m in 2006/7 alone. In the build-up to the Radio 1 40 year anniversary, I expect a whole load of sycophantic nonsense exaggerating its own self importance and role in society. The fact of the matter is that commercial radio would have quite happily provided a similar if not better service than Radio 1 at a far lower cost; comically the commercial sector would even have paid money to use the Radio 1 airwares. The only role that Radio 1 has fulfilled in 40 years is in consuming the oxygen which would have allowed the commercial sector to flourish. Admittedly, they have also provided a free of charge promotion service to the record industry, but I don’t think in the grand scheme of things this is where public funds should be allocated either.
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