The concept of 'free radio' soon spawned dozens of other offshore stations such as Radio London ('Big L'), Radio England, Radio Scotland (based in the Firth of Clyde, near Glasgow), Radio 270 (based off the Yorkshire coast, near Scarborough) and most curiously, a number of stations which operated from rusty ex-wartime sea forts in the Thames estuary, such as Radio City and Radio Essex.

The quality of these stations varied enormously. While stations such as Caroline and Big L could boast DJ line-ups which included names such as Kenny Everett, Johnnie Walker, Dave Lee Travis and Dave Cash, the smaller stations (such as those based on the forts) were basically run by amateurs. 

The pirate stations were regarded as a continual thorn in the side of the government of the day, who were desperate to find an excuse to have them closed down. They didn't have to wait long, and a shooting incident resulting from a row over 'ownership' of one of the illegally occupied Thames forts left a man dead.

The Marine Broadcasting Offences Act became law in August 1967, and the BBC launched it's national pop music station - Radio One - a month later.

One or two offshore stations continued broadcasting sporadically, including Radio Caroline, which continued broadcasting illegally until 1968 before disappearing, although it did re-emerge in 1972 with a rock-based format, and continued off and on until 1989. The most famous offshore station of the 1970's was Radio Northsea International, which broadcast on three frequencies (on AM, FM, and short wave) three miles from the coast of Scheveningen, Holland, until the Dutch government introduced their own legislation in 1974. 

Other notable offshore stations of this period were the excellent Radio Veronica (a Dutch station, which later gained legal status as a radio and TV broadcaster), plus Radio Atlantis (English and Dutch/Flemish - anchored off the Belgian coast). A number of well known personalities started their careers on RNI, including our very own Robbie Vincent.

October 1973 saw the launch of Britain's first legal commercial music station. Capital Radio broadcast round the clock to the London area, and boasted a DJ line-up gleaned mostly from Radio One, which by now had become horrendously 'tame', and represented the worst possible combination of cheesy radio presenters and jangly top 40 pop music. Amongst Capital's most memorable shows in it's early days was the Kenny & Cash breakfast show, featuring Kenny Everett and Dave Cash.

Capital did manage to fill a void for a fair few years, probably until around the mid 1980's, but it too became about as 'naff' as could be managed (the exception always having been Greg Edwards 'Soul Spectrum' - as a schoolboy circa 1974 I recall being blown away by records like Eddie Kendricks - 'Date With The Rain' or The Three Degrees - 'Year Of Decision' ) and, a few years later, not forgetting David Rodigan's brilliant Saturday night 'Roots Rockers' reggae show, where you'd have been treated to tracks such as Dennis Brown - 'Love Has Found It's Way'

Landbased pirate stations established a foothold in the London area during the late '70s, and filled a huge musical void. One of the originals was Radio Jackie, who campaigned vigorously for a licence to broadcast in their native south west London. Jackie was really a 'community' radio station, but did broadcast a fair share of black dance music. 

Radio Jackie broadcast on medium wave, and all of it's programming was pre-recorded, then transmitted from a 'site' - usually somewhere woodland, with a wire aerial strung up between trees, and a 'rig' (home made transmitter attached to a cassette player, and powered by car batteries).



 

The original radio champion of soul and jazz funk music was Radio Invicta - every Sunday from 12pm - 3pm. Invicta was quite innovative during the late '70s, as it was not only the first pirate with a format of soul music ('Soul Over London'), but it also used FM, rather than crackly AM.

The early '80s saw the advent of landbased pirates broadcasting 24-hours per day. During late 1983 our soul famine was brought to an end by those fine fellows at JFM who, after a couple of years of Sunday afternoon broadcasting, decided to go 'full time'.

The early to mid 1980s saw a boom in pirate radio activity, especially in London. Stations like JFM, LWR, Solar, Lightning, and Kiss (later to gain legal status) all broadcast on and off from various locations, and suffered numerous raids at the hands of the Home Office.





London, like many other parts of the country, is lucky enough to now have specialised radio stations catering for all types of musical tastes (including Soul and Jazz). It took until late 1989 for the UK to hear it's first legal black music radio station - the now long-forgotten WNK, which shared it's low power transmitter with London Greek Radio, taking turns to broadcast four hours at a time. There soon followed Choice FM, in South London, and (biggest of them all) Kiss FM. 

In it's early days, Kiss FM was British black music radio personified.