Turn a radio on in the UK, prior to Easter 1964, searching for pop music and chances are you’d have been disappointed. There were three radio choices, all provided by the BBC: The Home service, The Third Programme and the Light Programme, unless you were tuning in to the weekly Pick of the Pops programme, it was unlikely that you’d hear any song that was in the charts – unless you wanted a BBC house orchestra’s rendition of the latest Beatles hit.
The number of recorded songs played by the BBC was strictly limited, by agreement with the Musicians Union and until the arrival of a radio ship moored off the East coast, this situation looked unlikely to change. The BBC itself was also unlikely to be challenged; a recent Government enquiry had found no need or desire for commercial radio. The establishment had radio sewn up.
Radio Caroline turned radio upside down in Britain. Within days of her first broadcast, an audience of millions had tuned to this ‘pirate’ radio station – the press called them pirates, in truth, Caroline had just found a loophole in the law enabling broadcasts of pop records and commercials without the restrictions of ‘needle time’…and without a licence.
Within months an armada of ‘offshore’ radio stations were bombarding the nation with a constant diet of music presented by disc jockeys, many of them on the brink of becoming household names, and nearly all with something not heard on the BBC – accents.
The government was outraged; these radio stations and the disc jockeys that broadcast from them were becoming too popular, they had to be controlled, a belief enforced by the need to take action when a shooting resulted in the death of one radio station chief.
On August 14th 1967, the Marine Offences Broadcasting Act became law, restrictions planned at making it impossible for the stations to continue – all of the radio stations closed down, except for Radio Caroline. The future for Caroline was fraught with danger, drama and dedication by those involved with the organisation and the many that became a part of the ‘Caroline Family’ in the years that followed.
Fifty years later, a radio station called Caroline, a direct descendant of the original can still be heard, it’s programme legal and now online. Many question if there’s a need or a future for the station, but 50 years on, Caroline continues.
Ray Clark once a Radio Caroline disc jockey himself, tells the captivating story of Radio Caroline: The True Story of the Boat that Rocked.