Radio Atlanta History

In the mid-1960’s British teenagers had little to listen to on the radio; the UK government felt radio was such a powerful mass communication medium that it should be placed under state control (2), so the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed and was the only radio allowed to be broadcast. BBC radio would air very little pop music due to so-called ‘needletime restrictions’, which were put in place to ease fears that if recorded music became popular then live music would disappear (1), so the bulk of their programming was aimed at adults. Any teens wanting to listen to newer popular music had to tune in to Radio Luxembourg after dark, but their signal was weak and their music was monopolized by the major record labels Decca, EMI,
The first record played was the Rolling Stones ‘Not Fade Away’, dedicated to Ronan O’Rahilly (2). The station enjoyed enormous success, profit from advertisers was continuous since BBC operated mainly on licenses (1), and in only six months they boasted more listeners than all three BBC stations combined. Other pirate stations began popping up mainly in the Thames Estuary on ships and abandoned army forts out at sea (1). One of these was Radio Atlanta, which positioned itself right next to Caroline’s wavelength. Since Caroline already had the listeners, a merger took place in which the MV Caroline became Caroline North and Radio Atlanta’s ship the MV Mi Amigo became Caroline South (3). With two ships broadcasting the signal from two different points, Radio Caroline’s reach was massive, and claimed 20 million listeners. The UK government and BBC were not happy about the rise of pirate radio, but their audience was so vast that any vote against the radio stations was sure to lose their party votes in elections. The politicians made threats but as DJ Dave Cash stated “they could not act against us for the reasons stated. They needed something heavy like drugs or murder, we gave them murder” (3). A dispute between operators of other pirate stations, Reg Calvert and Major Oliver Smedley, erupted when Smedley hijacked Calvert’s fort where he was running his Radio City station from. Calvert broke into Smedley’s home and threw a stone ornament at him, and in retaliation Smedley shot him dead (2). This would prove to be the beginning of the end for pirate radio. By now it was 1967 and legislation now had the ammo to push its Marine Broadcasting Offences Act which would outlaw pirate radio for good (1). Despite their campaigning against it, the act became law and went into effect on