Sometimes, out there in the North Sea in the '60s and '70s, "pirate radio" lived up to its name. In this case, realizing they couldn't beat Radio Nordsee International's big pirate signal with their little pirate signal, some folks at Radio Veronica apparently thought arson on the high seas might be a winning business plan in May of 1971. As it turned out, it also made for some compelling radio -- just not for Veronica.
AS IT turned out, arson wasn't even that good of a knock-the-competition-off-the-air strategy. RNI went back on the air the next day.
It would take the Dutch government to pull the plug in 1974.
Pirate radio station WGUT rings in 1983 -- a very good year -- with its blowtorch 50-watt illegal signal reaching all the way to . . .Michigan?
It may be telling that pirate radio in 1983 was more professional and entertaining than professional radio today. It's kind of like we're all stumbling about on The Day After, only it didn't take nuclear war to get us this way.
Once upon a time, popular-music radio mattered so much, "pirate" Top-40 stations off the English coast scared a government and provoked a massive official backlash.
Once upon a time, "pirate" disc jockeys were bigger stars than the musicians they put onto the airwaves -- and the youth of a nation fought to keep them on "free radio."
AND ONCE HER MAJESTY'S government -- in 1967 -- finally succeeded in pulling the plug, the staid facade of the British Broadcasting Corp., cracked under the weight of demands that it program for the people, not at the people. Later that year, BBC Radio 1 was born.