Before Radio Caroline all UK radio listeners had was a diet of bland middle of the road music put out on one of the BBC's three national radio stations or if you were a teenager you could try and get reception on your transistor radio from Radio Luxemborg, a none too easy task. Enter Radio Caroline, put together by Irishman Ronan O'Rahilly and broadcast from a boat three miles off the coast of Britain, the station took its name from the daughter of John F Kennedy and began broadcasting on 28 March 1964. During March 1964, a Birmingham band called The Fortunes recorded the song Caroline (the B-side of You've Got Your Troubles, which entered the British charts in 1965, on Decca F11809), and this would later became the station's theme song
With Caroline as the catalyst and its audience of tens of millions, new music and youth fashion accelerated at astonishing speed and hundreds of new bands achieved massive and sometimes lasting success. Jonathan King, broadcaster and pop pundit recalls his simple throwaway pop song 'Everyone's Gone To The Moon' that within weeks of initial air play on Caroline projected him from obscurity to starring on prime time television at the prestigious London Palladium. Unknown actor Simon Dee, head hunted from Caroline and its first DJ, became one of the first superstar chat show hosts on British TV.
The blatant success of Caroline made imitation inevitable. In December 1964 the American backed and styled Radio London arrived on the vessel Galaxy.
While Caroline could later claim perseverance and longevity, Radio London (Big L) delivered highly professional American programming that temporarily at least captured much of the audience of Caroline South requiring Caroline to quickly adapt its own style and format.
Later two more American influenced stations Britain Radio and Swinging Radio England went on air from one ship. Radio 270 started off the Yorkshire coast while Radio Scotland on board the old lightship Comet anchored off the Scottish East coast. In the Thames Estuary were various marine structures which had been wartime sea forts. Abandoned by the military they made excellent and stable transmitting platforms and were quickly boarded and claimed by further radio entrepreneurs. Soon Radio 390 an easy listening station and the most powerful of all the sixties offshore broadcasters was on air, while from other structures Radio Essex and Radio King started transmissions.
From the day that Caroline appeared the UK government made threatening noises but no serious action was taken. Now there were several independent broadcasters sending programmes into the UK and twenty million people were listening. Further stations were rumoured to be in preparation and for the government things were getting out of hand. It was a delicate matter trying to legislate against a pastime which was providing a third of the population with the best fun they had enjoyed in a long time.
Grumbling about unauthorised use of radio frequencies and the vague potential for cross channel interference cut no ice with the offshore radio listeners who perceived the government and the BBC to be grumpy killjoys. Legislating against the pirates was a vote loser and for some time there was a stand off where the authorities made dire threats but did nothing. As famous Radio London DJ Dave Cash recalled many years later, 'they could not act against us for the reasons stated. They needed something heavy like drugs or murder, we gave them murder'.
Through spring and summer of 1967 the offshore stations campaigned against the proposed Marine Broadcasting Offences Act. Politicians were deluged with mail from supporters , creating more correspondence on the subject than on any other matter troubling the population. The Conservatives were cautiously for future commercial broadcasting, but Labour in power were implacably opposed to it. Only the veteran Member of Parliament Manny Shinwell said the pirates deserved 'a fair crack of the whip'.
On the question of why licences could not be awarded, the answer, now shown to be spurious was that there were simply no radio frequencies available. Clearly public opinion counted for little and the Act made inexorable progress toward becoming law by midnight on August 14th. By this stage only Johnnie Walker, Robbie Dale and news reader Ross Brown remained on board. By 3 March 1968 it was all over though, thanks to lack of revenue Radio Caroline had their ships repossessed and towed away to Holland.
Radio Caroline returned between 1972 and 78 until financial troubles once again forced it off air. Then again between 1983 and 90 (when they were raided and forced off air), Radio Caroline is now using the technology of the internet to broadcast once more. Based in Maidstone, Kent it uses satellite technology to broacast on Sky Channel 0199.
