I was reading this conversation on Facebork, as Facebork is almost always the best place to go to watch real people having actual conversations about total bollocks, especially if they are old radio anoraks.
I didn’t bother joining in – I can’t be arsed any more – but the essence of the discussion was how offshore radio will never happen again. Or will it?
By ‘offshore radio’ I’m guessing they mean a whole bunch of spotty young men sitting on a boat in the middle of the North Sea, rather than a boat housing a transmitter relaying programmes from elsewhere. Even the latter is doubtful, but the former just won’t happen.
After being presented with all the logic and reasoning, there’s always a pause followed by “Never say never” from the fellas who just won’t accept these are different times.
As they’ve gotten older (and not wiser) they’ve certainly become more distanced from logic.
It got me thinking of the whole offshore radio thing and timelines, timescales, and putting it all into perspective.
Now, as far as I can fathom, Radio Caroline was the last offshore radio station, and it broadcast for the last time 23 years ago.
On the day when Radio Caroline died there was no Facebook, no Youtube, no Forums, in fact no ‘web’, no broadband, no textual communication, and, for 99% of the population, no internet or email.
Mobile phones were considered the devices of ‘yuppies’. TV was only 4 channels for most people, with Sky TV in its infancy. It was a very different world.
Caroline as an offshore radio station opened in 1964 and died in 1990. That’s a sweep of 26 years. In context, in only three years from now, Caroline will have been off the air for as long as it was ever on the air.
If you actually include the long periods of time when it was off the air during those 26 years (like the 3 years between when one ship sank and they managed to get the money to fit out and get on air a new ship, or the 4 years between the 1968 closure and the return in 1972, plus the numerous periods it was off the air for months at a time), then, as an offshore radio broadcaster, Caroline has actually been off the air for longer than it was on.
For the entire duration of the time that Caroline made and enjoyed an offshore radio history, there has been no offshore radio.
Yet, the die hard radio anorak fans won’t accept offshore pirate radio is dead. They just sit there saying “Never say never.”
It’s also interesting how people will discuss the contribution that offshore radio made to society.
The first wave of offshore radio stations started in 1964 and all finished 3 years later. Indeed, during the first two summers, they were, broadly speaking, copies of the BBC Light Programme playing lots of orchestral and brass bands (The 1960s seems to have been the era of lots of tedious ‘Latin-American’ trumpet music!).
So, the ‘revolution’ that is remembered and constantly spoken of over and over again only came about by 1966, by which time the offshore stations had evolved to have a radically different sound to the BBC’s Light Programme. They closed in 1967, so that’s only 2 summers that were soundtracked by the pop radio revolution that always gets represented as being all of ‘the 60s’, and an exciting radio era. Bizarre isn’t it?
A similar thing happened in the 1980s. A station called Laser 558 broadcast for a year from 1984 to 1985. Yep, Laser 558 existed for just 1 year. And yet radio anoraks go on about it as if it soundtracked all the 1980s, when it actually didn’t. Again, bizarre isn’t it?
For decades now we’ve been in an era where there’s maybe far too much radio, and none of it has any earth-shattering personality or importance to anybody.
The three or four huge organisations that own all the radio stations between them, deliberately make them bland and unexciting because it’s safer, cheaper and easier. They still rake in their £millions regardless of what a station sounds like.
Many people create radio stations on the internet, since anybody can, but again, nobody does anything memorable or ‘earth shattering’ like the original offshore greats Radio London and Radio Caroline in the 1960s and Laser 558 in the 1980s.
My concern is less that offshore radio will never return, but more that the ‘power’ radio once commanded is now lost forever in the burble of so many stations all doing nothing.
And I’m not sure if video killed the radio star or if it was the internet.
England's England 
Your summary of Radio Caroline is correct in many respects. When launched, it did not have to be particularly good, it only had to play music all the time, round the clock, which the BBC would not do and Radio Luxembourg could not do.
As you say, the station was silent for long blocks of time and last broadcast a signal from a ship beyond UK territory 23 years ago. The present incarnation of Caroline using Satellite, Internet and Apps, now represents the longest span of unbroken transmissions of the stations history.
Radio Caroline was placed on a ship in 1964 since at the time, this was the only way to operate a private radio station.
This era will never return for legal and practical reasons and because of technology and because of the huge proliferation of radio stations on platforms that did not exist years ago. The cake has not really got any bigger but it is now sliced in to hundreds of tiny slivers.
The present Radio Caroline is enjoyed by sufficient people that it can be sustained by their voluntary donations. It entertains them and does no harm. Agreed it is not ground breaking only in that it is not profit driven and can thus play a higher perecentage of music per hour than stations that have to fill their time with advertisements amd promotions.
It is fine to look back at the history of offshore radio with nostalgia. It was a charismatic thing to do and there were many adventures.
But, there are a tiny number of people who have turned it in to a complex religion, where the only true God is an AM radio signal coming from a pirate ship in the ocean.These are the ultra orthodox Anoraks. Others, less radical, will accept a signal that is licensed so long as it comes from a ship. Maybe they can barely hear it, but will tune in anyway as it represents ' Offshore Radio '. Some will listen to a modern means of delivery such as Internet, so long as the signal originates from a person sitting on a ship.
Obviously it cannot be proven 100%, absolutely, certain, for sure, that nobody will ever again put a radio station on ship far out to sea. So the Ultraraks speculate on how this might be done. What might it cost, would the authorities close it down ?
Obe person asks to be given £30.000 to revive offshore radio, but refuses tp say when, where and how. Another feels that it would cost maybe a million pounds as everything ought to be done by the book and with high wages for all concerned.
It is harmless enough stuff with which to pass the time.
I could pose the question, that if my age were magically halved, my hair transformed from grey back to brown and if I became a Rock Star and my penis doubled in size, how many groupies might I sleep with per tour and what would their names be.
Some of these guys would say this was a ridiculous question, but I swear that some would say 'about twenty, called Suzy, Lulu, Tracey, Linda ' etc. While others would ask how long the mythical tour may be, which country and whether I would play Classic Rock, Melodic Rock or Heavy Metal.
Peter Moore.
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well written Peter and thanks Christopher for making me aware of this subject!!!
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but could these platforms choose not such a f****g rubbish to proove no-robots instead of stuff You can t read! or the real horror: try spoken words, any AM signal is crystal clear comp. to that gosh!
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yes I agree this system is a nightmare. the door with a number on is sometimes OK but the word. yes exactly.
some other systems are a little better. they use a near normal quite stupid word like 'gOosefaRt'. you can just about understand.
tried an audio version once and could not understand at all. sounded like out of band pirate short wave station 🙂
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Nick Bolland
Pretty much spot on and the conclusion. I feel there is gap in the UK market with most commericial radio being large groups playing restricted playlist with mucho old 80s stuff. Caroline could , on landbased AM to start, fill that gap with a wider format of new music with SOME oldies, Ten maybe aim a localised DAB one day as ad when funds permit- in Cheslea ?.
Unless North Korea fancy issuing a license I accept the back to sea ain't the way forward. AM would not get the mass takeup you would need. So please re consider today's niche format and go after the anti commercial 40+ rebels who want a caroline take on radio 1 and no phone ins. maybe a little more research is in order but many many in the bus. I see agree with this gap.
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It has been nearly 20 years since turned my attention away from the world of watery wireless and here I am surfing around on the internet and bumped into this. This is an interesting site Chris, I have enjoyed my time here. Some of your observations in the above piece are spot on and I have often thought what it would have been like back in the 1980s era had e-mail, mobile phones, internet etc etc been available widely. It would have been a nightmare for the organisation trying to keep anything 'quiet' and the anorak community would have whipped itself into a ethernet meltdown. PM's response is, as one would expect, both well considered and witty. The man is a hero for keeping with 'the dream' and I respect him hugely for that. Surely, another question that might be raised in response to his magic penis size doubling trick would be something like: 'with all the money you'll make as a Rock Star you'll be able to re-fit the ship and ready it for the North Sea….won't you?” Or is that being too silly?
I agree with both of you – the 'at sea' thing is long dead and even if some far away country did venture to issue a licence it would need to know all about the ship and registration and…..hey, hang on I'm having a dejavu moment.
Also, the above comments about the playlist, whilst I am sure are valid, are also resonant. I seem to recall that there was always an on-going debate about 'the Format' back in the watery days.
So, in summary, after 20 years nothing seems to have changed very much while my back's been turned, apart from this; Is it really possible that one can now present a live radio show from one's living room using only a PC and a microphone? The question is apocryphal but I suppose that is the one real thing that has changed and in my view because of that, the magic has gone.
The internet may not have killed the radio star but it most certainly has taken the fun out of it………in my opinion.
Keep on keeping on
Tee
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