[18], On 3 March 1968, the radio ships Mi Amigo and Caroline were boarded and seized before the day's broadcasting began. The Mi Amigo was tendered clandestinely from Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Caroline's album format meant that, although the station served a gap in the market, its audience was smaller than in the 1960s. Having to manoeuvre the lifeboat alongside the stricken vessel 13 times in high seas and a north-easterly gale earned Coxswain Charles Bowry an RNLI Silver Medal. 15 Alfred Place His programme, which airs five days a week, rose from 4.3 million to 4.5 million listeners between the . In late 1977, Radio Caroline began sponsored evangelical programmes, and music programmes began at 9p.m. On 20 October 1978, technical and financial problems put the Mi Amigo off the air. Important information on how the survey works and who and what we measure. The UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) put a permanent watch on movements around the Ross Revenge and the MV Communicator, Laser 558's ship. The Mi Amigo returned to its Frinton-on-Sea anchorage with a redesigned antenna and a new 50kW transmitter and attempted to resume broadcasting on 18 April, nominally on 259 metres to enable the same jingles as Radio Caroline North on 1169kHz to be used, but actually 252 metres. I remember wandering around that show house with my tranny on my arm. I could never figure out if he was "high on life" or high on some of that famous Falls Head Herb usually found in the Overdrive studio, so John Bennett tells me. It is jointly owned by the BBC and the Radiocentre on behalf of the commercial sector. Age UK cited NHS Digital figures for England which show there were 28,890 support requests for people aged 65 and over in 2021/22 where the person died without any of those services being provided. In June 1990, Spectrum Radio, a new multi-ethnic community radio station in London, was officially allocated 558kHz. Total listening hours for Talkradio were up 23% compared to the last quarter to reach 5.7m hours each week, while Times Radio's listening hours were up 16% to 3.6m hours weekly. The Huskers (16-13, 8-10 Big Ten . Although most broadcasting staff left at that time, some remained for a year as caretakers while funding and equipment were sought. Now I don't know Peter Moore personally, so cannot comment on the type of person he is, but I do know that he has done a lot for Caroline over the past few years and I'm sure without him it would still be nowhere to be heard. Belgium had outlawed offshore radio in 1962 and prosecuted advertisers, cutting the station's revenue. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. The station played a wide selection of music from when Caroline started in the 1960s, but also included music from the 1970s and 1980s and early 1990s to widen the audience profile. The first record played was Fool (If You Think It's Over), by Chris Rea, dedicated to the British Home Office. Using land-based studios leased in Kent[51] in the late 1990s, the station began broadcasting via satellites Astra 19.2E and Eutelsat 28A, covering western Europe. One is lack of finance, so presenters work for nothing we, the Caroline supporters, can ask for no greater dedication and I am quite happy to do my bit and help keep the dream alive with my monthly subscription. To allow Radio Mi Amigo to continue broadcasting by day, the engineering work for Caroline's move had to be carried out over six nights, after the 50kW transmitter was switched off. [21] It was not until RNI returned to its original anchorage off the Netherlands that the jamming ceased. 68% of Brits listen to the radio at home. Radio Caroline John Miles - Highfly Premier Christian Radio Hope Through The Night DJ On Tap Bobbie Gentry - I'll Never Fall in Love Again Times Radio The best of Times Radio - Highlights from the week Original 106 Anne-Marie - 2002 Smooth Country Michael Johnson - Give Me Wings Red Rose Radio ABBA - Lay All Your Love On Me U105 [67][68][69][70] The station, owned by St Peters Studio and Community Radio Limited, has not only licensed the name from Radio Caroline, but has also got technical support and programming from the station, who have their own community radio licences in the south, south east and in East Anglia on 648AM (with Radio Caroline also found on DAB in a number of British cities, plus DAB+ in Cambridge). Presentations were made to US advertising agencies. DJs could choose ordering of oldies all current pop hits in strict rotation. This statistic shows the result of a survey on weekly radio listening in the United Kingdom (UK) in the first quarter of 2020, by age. Owner: Planet Sales Ltd. First air date: 1964. News at peak hours: 7, 8, 9am, 1pm; 5, 6, 7pm, with headlines at 6:30am, 7:30am and 8:30am. Radio Caroline North = 10kW (later 20kW). During mid-August 1989, authorities in several European countries carried out coordinated raids on houses, recording studios and offices believed to be used by Caroline. The continuing story of Radio Caroline, the 1960's pirate radio station that survived the Marine Offences Act, which saw the end of pirate radio station around the shores of the UK. Around this time, O'Rahilly decided Caroline should adopt an album format similar to FM progressive rock stations in the US, an audience not catered for in Europe. It was the floating pirate radio station whose mission to was to transmit rock 'n' roll to the masses. Meanwhile, Radio Mi Amigo had interference on 1562kHz and changed to 1412kHz (212 m). Caroline Pavis +1 (610) 357-3121 Investor Relations: On 12 June 2006, the station bought an EPG slot on Sky channel 0199. At one minute past midnight on 1 October 2001, Caroline returned on 1503kHz from the LV (Light Vessel) 18 in Harwich harbour. [14] Presenters Tony Blackburn, Roger Gale, Ray Teret, Simon Dee, Tony Prince, Spangles Muldoon, Keith Skues, Johnnie Walker, Robbie Dale, Dave Lee Travis, Tommy Vance, Tom Edwards, Paul Noble, Bob Stewart and Andy Archer became well known. The station has subsequently broadcast on 531kHz AM from the Ross Revenge during some bank holiday weekends, beginning on 2831 August 2009 and also within a few days of the 50th anniversary of the ship's first voyage. The pirates were also not paying any royalty to artists, composers or record companies. The last broadcast from the Mi Amigo was by Stevie Gordon and Tom Anderson:[32]. In May 2017, Ofcom awarded the station an AM band community licence to broadcast to Suffolk and north Essex;[3] full-time broadcasting, via a previously redundant BBC World Service transmitter mast at Orford Ness, commenced on 22 December 2017.[4]. The final song was Pilot of the Airwaves by Charlie Dore.[43]. I did not succeed in getting things right every day, but I certainly felt good every time I heard the famous Caroline bell going "Ding, Ding," followed by the opening tune from those days: "On My Way Back Home" from The New Riders on the Purple Sage. [citation needed]. BBC Radio 2 to air special show for Tony Blackburn's 80th birthday. These data are produced and sold at cost providing both industry accountability and a robust trading currency for each medium. On 27 April, the Mi Amigo was fully operational. This market overview is based on the first three waves of the Tracking Panel, comparing listening through April, May and June with pre-lockdown. , updated On 3 September 1985 at 00:00 hours the Dioptric Surveyor departed in a storm. The Dutch offshore station Radio Veronica was on 1562 kHz and Radio Atlanta broadcast on 1493 kHz. Broadcasting from various offshore locations to Western Europe, Status unclear and mainly operated by supporters, Radio Atlantis 1973 and Radio Mi-Amigo 19741978, Geographic areas bordering upon North Sea, 963 kHz (wavelength announced as "319" metres) later moving to 819 kHz with additional transmitter in 531594 kHz range (principally 558 kHz). [30] Radio Caroline returned to the air on 15 April 1979. In 1990 the UK government amended the 1967 anti-offshore law to allow the boarding and silencing of stations in international waters if their signals could be received in the UK, even if their vessels were foreign-registered and operated. [6] Because of the Christmas holidays, no solicitors were available to issue a writ and the ship lay in Amsterdam harbour until O'Rahilly arranged for it to be towed back to sea. Harry Howard, History Correspondent For Mailonline, Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' Andy Archer then came in to say he and Johnny Jason wanted to record the opening programme for Radio Seagull and asked Rob, my friend and I to buy a bottle of sparking white wine for ten Dutch guilders which could be used to sound like champagne when "opened" on air. The Fredericia was renamed MV Caroline and anchored off Felixstowe, Suffolk, where it began test transmissions on Friday, 27 March 1964. Two aerials and twin transmitters were used for about six weeks until the aerial mast failed. Click the pic to find out more. O'Rahilly wanted Radio Caroline to become an oldies station. . Every time I succeeded in getting a good signal during the evening, I knew I again would have a very good evening. This was not because they wanted to buy a house, but because the ones on the new estate had been constructed with an innovative type of central heating, which blew hot air through ducts under the floor. Tony Blackburn turns 80 years old on the 29th of January and BBC Radio 2 will celebrate the occasion in a special programme, reports OnTheRadio.. Legal status unclear due to a need to conceal actual legal ownership. New data has shown the listening figures for BBC radio stations, with two of its flagship outlets having experienced a sharp decline in audiences - whilst some shows have remained steady instead Radio stations ranked by weekly reach in the United Kingdom (UK) as of 1st quarter 2020 (in 1,000 listeners) Listeners reached in thousands* BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 1 Classic FM. [6] The TV operation was later found to be a publicity stunt.[24]. Round Midnight was confined to closedown on Radio Caroline North after The World Tomorrow. It began taking in water and the crew was rescued by lifeboat. Radio Caroline's first musical theme was Jimmy McGriff's "Round Midnight", a jazz standard co-composed by Thelonious Monk. I am enjoying their programmes immensely at present but there always seems to be a lot of criticism about the station no matter what they do. [25], Between 11 and 20 April 1973, the ship broadcast for Radio Veronica while its ship, the Norderney, was aground. A coastguard vessel escorted the launch back to shore, but the authorities were unhappy that Caroline listeners had jammed the emergency switchboards. BBC Radio 2 newsreader Colin Berry started his career reading the news on Radio Caroline South. While 6 Music saw a 3.1 per cent dip in its quarter-on-quarter listening figures - pulling in 2.6million listeners - the station is still the UK's number one digital radio station. However, the storm had weakened the mast, which collapsed in another storm later. The fact is that the station is on air for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week something I would have not thought possible not that long ago. The station re-started for a second time in August 1983 from new ship the MV Ross Revenge. (iii)558 kHz: strict pop and oldies mainstream format (no presenter music choice) with strict adherence to format clocks. This was all in the 1970's. [26] The station's offices and studios were in Brakel, Belgium, but moved to Castell-Platja d'Aro, Costa Brava, Spain in March 1975 after a raid by Belgian police. [6] The Cheeta II was equipped for FM broadcasting, so it was fitted with the 10kW transmitter from the Mi Amigo, feeding a makeshift antenna. The highlight however was picking up test transmissions from Radio Caroline I had missed the tests of the previous day. In December 2010, Chatham and Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch presented an Early Day Motion to the House of Commons calling for Ofcom to allow Radio Caroline to broadcast as a licensed medium wave station to its "traditional heartland of the south east".