Radio Pirates were outlawed

Death To Pirates!

Thanks to the ‘wonders’ of the internet, anyone can be their own radio station. All you need is a laptop and a Wifi connection and you can start podcasting your thoughts about cheese, politics or Game of Thrones to the whole wide world. But it didn’t used to be so easy. Back in the 1960s, unlicensed radio stations, attempting to reflect the pop music of the day which the BBC tried to ignore, started popping up in the oceans around the UK.

Thanks to a loophole in the law, if they were floating far enough away from the coast, they could broadcast whatever and wherever they wanted.These pirate stations, such as Radio Luxembourg, Radio Caroline and Wonderful Radio London were the training grounds for DJs such as Kenny Everett, John Peel, Tony Blackburn and Noel Edmonds. But sadly, on this day in 1967, the nattily titled Marine & Broadcasting (Offences) Act came into effect, which outlawed the pirates. Many went on to join the brand new BBC station Radio 1, which played the latest hits and thoroughly addled the youth of the day.