Pirate Radio in the UK

***UK pirate radio***, unlicensed illegal broadcasting, was popular in the 1960s and experienced another surge of interest in the 1980s. There are currently an estimated 150 pirate radio stations in the UK. A large proportion of these pirate radio stations operate in London.

### History

"Pirate radio" in the UK first became widespread in the early 1960s when pop music stations such as Radio Caroline and Radio London started to broadcast on medium wave to the UK from offshore ships or disused sea forts. At the time, these stations were not illegal because they were broadcasting from international waters. The stations were set up by entrepreneurs and music enthusiasts to meet the growing demand for pop and rock music, which was not catered for by the legal BBC Radio services.

The 1967 Marine Broadcasting Offences Act officially outlawed offshore stations, but unlicensed radio continued, moving from ships and sea-based platforms to urban areas in the latter part of the 1960s (they were already illegal under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949). During this period, home-made medium wave (and sometimes short wave) transmitters were often constructed inside cheap, expendable biscuit tins.

The 1970s and 1980s saw a wave of landbased pirate radio, broadcasting mostly in big cities. These included community-focused local stations such as Sunshine Radio in Shropshire and Radio Jackie in south west London. In London pirate stations emerged that, for the first time in UK radio broadcasting, focused on particular music genres such as Radio Invicta (92.4 FM) Europe's first soul station, started in 1970. Kiss FM (dance), Solar Radio (soul), Raiders FM, Radio Amanda and Radio Floss (rock) and Dread Broadcasting Corporation (reggae).

By 1989, there were about 600 pirate radio stations in the UK, with over 60 in London. In the 1990s, a new wave of rave pirate radio stations emerged, such as Radio Sunrise, Radio Centre Force and Radio Fantasy. In the early 1990s, pirate radio briefly declined in response to tougher penalties, an intensified crackdown by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the leading dance pirate radio station Kiss FM responding to the Government's offer of amnesty for pirate stations that closed down voluntarily and applied for an official license. But Kiss FM failed to satisfy the rising rave audience and pirate radio resurged in 1992 and 1993. The new pirate radio stations abandoned the mainstream pop radio format and moved to a "raves on the air" format with strong emphasis on audience participation, enabled by the spread of mobile phones. Pirate radio stations would frequently lose transmitters worth several hundred pounds due to DTI raids, redirecting to backup transmitters on the roof of another building to maintain broadcast continuity.

The Broadcasting Act 1990 led to the brief decline of UK pirate radio by encouraging diversity in radio and opening up the development of commercial radio. Many pirate radio stations such as the London-based dance music station Kiss FM applied for licenses to the new Radio Authority and went legitimate. However, the number of unlicensed broadcasts has since increased, partly because many non-licensed broadcasters believed that the 1990 Act had actually undermined community-based stations and small scale radio entrepreneurs. Of the pirate radio stations that gained a license in the 1990s, such as Kiss FM, FTP in Bristol, WNK Radio in Haringey and KFM Radio in Stockport, only a few, such as Sunrise Radio in London, remained in the hands of the original owners. Most have become significantly more mainstream and target a broad audience as a result of commercial pressures to achieve greater audience numbers and a particular audience type sought by advertisers.