Wonderful Radio London
Encyclopedia
Fab 40
The "Fab 40" was a weekly playlist of popular records used by the British "pirate" radio station "Wonderful" Radio London which broadcast off the Essex coast from 1964-7.-Basis of the chart:...
") offshore commercial station that operated from 16 December 1964 to 14 August 1967, from a ship anchored in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea
Frinton-on-Sea
Frinton-on-Sea is a small seaside town in the Tendring District of Essex, England. It is part of the Parish of Frinton and Walton.-History:...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, England. The station, like the other offshore radio
Offshore radio
Offshore radio is radio broadcasting from ships or fixed maritime structures, usually in international waters. The claimed first wireless broadcast of music and speech for the purpose of entertainment was transmitted from a Royal Naval craft, the HMS Andromeda, in 1907...
operators at the time, was dubbed a pirate radio
UK pirate radio
UK pirate radio was popular in the 1960s and experienced another surge of interest in the 1980s. There are currently an estimated 150 pirate radio stations in the UK...
station and its offices were located in the West End of London
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
at 17 Curzon Street just off Park Lane
Park Lane (road)
Park Lane is a major road in the City of Westminster, in Central London.-History:Originally a country lane running north-south along what is now the eastern boundary of Hyde Park, it became a fashionable residential address from the eighteenth century onwards, offering both views across Hyde Park...
.
The station broadcast from the MV Galaxy, a former Second World War United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
minesweeper
Minesweeper (ship)
A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...
originally named USS Density. The majority of programmes were presented live from a studio in the hold. The ship's metal bulkheads presented problems with acoustics and soundproofing that were originally solved by lining the walls with mattresses from the crew's bunk beds, which meant none of them could sleep during the day.
Origin of the station
Radio London was the brainchild of Don PiersonDon Pierson
Donald Grey Pierson was a businessman and civic leader in Eastland, Texas. He founded the British pirate stations Wonderful Radio London, Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio during the 1960s...
who lived in Eastland, Texas
Eastland, Texas
Eastland is a city in Eastland County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,769 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Eastland County.During the 1920s, Eastland, like nearby Cisco, Ranger, and Desdemona, were petroleum boomtowns....
, United States. In a 1984 interview, Pierson said that he got the idea in 1964 to start the station while reading The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
. The daily carried a report of the start-up of Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
and Radio Atlanta
Radio Atlanta
Radio Atlanta named after Atlanta, Texas, was an offshore commercial station that operated briefly from 12 May 1964 to 2 July 1964 from a ship anchored in the North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England...
from ships at that time anchored off the coastline of south east England.
Pierson said he was captivated by the fact that these two offshore stations
Offshore radio
Offshore radio is radio broadcasting from ships or fixed maritime structures, usually in international waters. The claimed first wireless broadcast of music and speech for the purpose of entertainment was transmitted from a Royal Naval craft, the HMS Andromeda, in 1907...
were the first and only all-day commercial radio broadcasters serving the UK. Pierson was an entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
– and he compared the number of stations then serving the population of his native Northwest Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
with the two stations serving the entire UK. He had an idea that would be worth a lot of money while bringing enjoyment to many people, he told Gilder. He caught the next available "red eye" flight from Love Field in Dallas to the UK where he investigated the British broadcasting scene. On arriving, he chartered a small plane and flew over the two existing radio ships on the North Sea and after taking photographs, returned to Texas determined to create a station bigger and better than either of them.
However, owing to a disagreement with its members, Pierson had to leave the Radio London consortium. His participation came to a complete end several weeks before the radio station went on air except he was allowed to keep a small shareholding in the venture.
Broadcasting staff
The disc jockeys included: Chuck Blair; Tony BlackburnTony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn is an English disc jockey, who broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1967. In 2002 he was the winner of the ITV reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity.....
; Pete Brady; Tony Brandon
Tony Brandon
Tony Brandon is a British radio presenter and comedian.-Early career:Brandon originally worked on television and abroad as a comedian...
; Dave Cash
Dave Cash (disc jockey)
Dave Cash is a veteran British radio presenter who works for BBC Radio Kent, having had previous spells at Radio London, BBC Radio 1, Capital Radio, Radio West , Country 1035 and PrimeTime Radio.-Radio career:Cash was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, U.K...
- who also teamed-up to present a very popular Kenny and Cash Show. Ian Damon
Ian Damon
Ian Damon is a British radio personality.Born in Sydney, Australia and after 8 years as a broadcaster on New South Wales stations 2RG and 2LF, Ian decided to tour Europe and Canada settling in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire in the UK.He joined the offshore Radio London/Big L on the MV Galaxy...
; Chris Denning
Chris Denning
Chris Denning is an English disc jockey. His career was effectively over when he was revealed as a paedophile, and he has spent three decades in and out of prison in Britain and Eastern Europe...
; Dave Dennis; Pete Drummond; John Edward
Johnny Edward
Johnny Edward , is a British musician, writer and record producer, also known as the creator of the children's television character Metal Mickey.-Musician:...
; Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
(co-host of the Kenny and Cash Show, and ultimately fired for on-air indiscretions); Garner Ted and Herbert W. Armstrong
Garner Ted Armstrong
Garner Ted Armstrong was an American evangelist and the son of Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, at the time a Sabbatarian organization that taught strict observance of seventh-day Sabbath, holy days typically associated with the Jewish faith, and other observances...
(the station's biggest advertisers on the station); Graham Gill; Bill Hearne; Duncan Johnson; Paul Kaye
Paul Kaye (broadcaster)
Paul Kaye was a British radio broadcaster from Barnstaple in North Devon.-Biography:...
(who became the station's main news reader); Lorne King; "Marshall" Mike Lennox; John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
(see The Perfumed Garden (radio show)
The Perfumed Garden (radio show)
The Perfumed Garden was the title given by John Peel to his 1967 late-night programme on the British pirate radio station, Radio London. After several years of work in US commercial pop radio, Peel joined the station in March 1967, on returning to the UK from California. As well as various slots on...
). Earl Richmond
Earl Richmond
Earl Richmond , was a broadcaster born in Highgate, London in 1928, he died in May 2001.Earl first worked in radio on British Forces Radio in Trieste. He was also heard in Cyprus before moving to America to study Television....
; Mark Roman; John Sedd; Keith Skues
Keith Skues
Keith Skues MBE is a British radio personality. He is nicknamed "Cardboard Shoes".Skues was born in Timperley, Cheshire. His broadcasting career began on the British Forces Network in Cologne, Germany in 1958. This was followed by overseas tours to Kuwait, Kenya and Aden...
; Ed "Stewpot" Stewart
Ed Stewart
Ed Stewart is a radio broadcaster from England. His real name is Edward Mainwaring but he is known by the nickname Ed Stewpot Stewart.-Early life and career:...
; Norman St. John; Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance was a British pop radio broadcaster, born in Eynsham, Oxfordshire. He was one of the few music broadcasters in the United Kingdom to champion hard rock and heavy metal in the early 1980s, providing the only national radio forum for both bands and fans...
(who came to the station late via Radio Caroline South and had been a DJ on KHJ
KHJ (AM)
KHJ Radio in Los Angeles, California broadcasts Spanish-language entertainment programming as La Ranchera. It was also one of America's most formidable Top 40 radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s as 93 KHJ before changing its format in 1980....
Los Angeles); Richard Warner; Willy Walker; Alan West; Tony Windsor (who had begun his offshore career with Radio Atlanta
Radio Atlanta
Radio Atlanta named after Atlanta, Texas, was an offshore commercial station that operated briefly from 12 May 1964 to 2 July 1964 from a ship anchored in the North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England...
) and John Yorke.
In August 1966, The Beatles started their last US concert tour. After the storm John Lennon's “more popular than Jesus
More popular than Jesus
Angry reactions flared up in August 1966, after John Lennon's remark that The Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus" was quoted by the American teen magazine, Datebook. Lennon originally made the remark when an English newspaper reporter, Maureen Cleave, interviewed him at home for a...
” had caused in the US, the group’s reception was a cause for speculation – and the Beatles' management company arranged for a number of British journalists to accompany them. Radio London's Kenny Everett (a Liverpudlian), Caroline's Jerry Leighton and Swinging Radio England's Ron O'Quinn were invited to tag along. Because the UK Post Office – then the country’s monopoly telephone service provider – had cut ship-to-shore communication with all the pirate vessels, Everett had to call a number on land.
The station’s news chief Paul Kaye
Paul Kaye (broadcaster)
Paul Kaye was a British radio broadcaster from Barnstaple in North Devon.-Biography:...
would go ashore, take the call in Harwich and tape the conversation before heading back to the ship where the recording was edited and music inserted to make a 30 minute programme, sponsored by Bassett's Jelly Babies, allegedly The Beatles' favourite sweets; the shows went out each evening at 7.30pm for 40 days of the tour. In 1967, Radio London got an 8-day UK exclusive on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...
, playing it first on 12 May 1967 – the album was in the shops on 1 June 1967 – but Everett had left the station on 21 March that year.
Advertising sales
A Cadillac car dealer in AbileneAbilene, Texas
Abilene is a city in Taylor and Jones counties in west central Texas. The population was 117,063 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Abilene Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a 2006 estimated population of 158,063. It is the county seat of Taylor County...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
who became one of the investors associated with Pierson in his offshore project, nominated Philip Birch, a J. Walter Thompson account director who had relocated from JWT's offices in the US to their offices in London. Birch was appointed Managing Director and was responsible for the entire management of Radio London and of its sales company Radlon (Sales). Birch, a hard-headed businessman, was largely responsible for the station's success, tailoring the American-style format to give the broadest appeal to a British audience.
The cost of running the station was covered by local and national advertising revenue and the half-hour religious commentary The World Tomorrow
The World Tomorrow
The World Tomorrow is a now-defunct radio and television half-hour program which had been sponsored by the Radio Church of God which ran from 1934 to 1994...
presented by either Herbert W. Armstrong
Herbert W. Armstrong
Herbert W. Armstrong founded the Worldwide Church of God in the late 1930s, as well as Ambassador College in 1946, and was an early pioneer of radio and tele-evangelism, originally taking to the airwaves in the 1930s from Eugene, Oregon...
or his son Garner Ted Armstrong
Garner Ted Armstrong
Garner Ted Armstrong was an American evangelist and the son of Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, at the time a Sabbatarian organization that taught strict observance of seventh-day Sabbath, holy days typically associated with the Jewish faith, and other observances...
.
British authorities would not allow registration of a British sales company called "Radio London" because the name was considered "too similar" to that of an existing company, Commercial Radio (London) Ltd and so it was registered as "Radlon (Sales) Ltd." and was owned by Philip Birch and was the name on the air for advertising sales. The investors were based in Texas and used a series of different names for interlocking companies outside the UK and USA that represented their ownership in order to disguise primarily for tax reasons, their financial interests.
After the closure of Big L, Birch later became the founding managing director of Piccadilly Radio, one of Britain's most successful radio stations, when it was awarded the UK licence for Manchester during 1973. He also founded Air Services Ltd a leading radio advertising sales company responsible for selling national advertising for stations located throughout the UK. He continued as CEO of Piccadilly Radio and Chairman of Air Services Ltd until his retirement in January 1984.
Station name
The name of the station was to have been Radio KLIF London because the floating station was to have used recorded programmes from KLIFKLIF
KLIF is a commercial radio station licensed to serve Dallas, Texas, USA. The station is owned by Cumulus Media. KLIF broadcasts a conservative-leaning news/talk radio format to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.-Call sign history:...
, Dallas. When it was decided that the sound should be live instead of recorded, Pierson hired Ben Toney as programme director. Philip Birch was appointed CEO in charge of the radio station and of advertising sales. Birch suggested calling the station Radio Galaxy, in anticipation of its star making ability. As a compromise the minesweeper was renamed MV Galaxy while the station became Radio London. However, the PAMS
PAMS
PAMS , based in Dallas, Texas, was the most famous jingle production company in American broadcasting. It produced identification packages for radio stations around the world, as well as some commercial music.-History:The company was founded by William B. Meeks, Jr. PAMS (an acronym for Production,...
jingles caused a further refinement of the name so that it was known as Wonderful Radio London and Big L; just as KLIF in Dallas called its hometown Big D.
Transmitter power
The station's American-manufactured RCARCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
Ampliphase
Ampliphase
Ampliphase is the brand name of an amplitude modulation system achieved by summing phase modulated carriers. It was originally marketed by RCA for AM broadcast transmitters.- How it works :...
transmitter was rated at 50,000 watt
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s (50 kW) – An on-air slogan ran 'Your 50,000 watt Tower of Power', although initially it operated at 17,000 watts. In contrast, Radio Caroline, its main rival, operated with a Continental Electronics
Continental Electronics
Continental Electronics is a major American manufacturer of broadcast and military radio transmitters, based in Dallas, Texas. Although Continental today is best known for its FM, shortwave, and military VLF transmitters, Continental is most significant historically for its line of mediumwave ...
10 kW transmitter. In 1966, Caroline South upgraded to a 50 kW Continental transmitter and, for a time, Radio London pretended to retaliate by increasing its transmitter power to 75 kW.
The station's antenna was a vertical guyed tubular steel mast positioned aft of the bridge house. Radio London's official publicity always claimed that the mast had a height of 212 feet (64.6 metres), but this was another exaggeration. A recent estimate based on photographs of the ship puts the actual height at around 170 feet (about 52 metres). http://www.hansknot.com/2007-10b.htm
While the wavelength
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a...
was always announced as "266 metres" The station experimented with various frequencies
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
between 1133 and 1137.5 kHz and tended to suffer nighttime heterodyne
Heterodyne
Heterodyning is a radio signal processing technique invented in 1901 by Canadian inventor-engineer Reginald Fessenden where high frequency signals are converted to lower frequencies by combining two frequencies. Heterodyning is useful for frequency shifting information of interest into a useful...
interference from stations in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
and elsewhere.
Station close-down
At midnight on 14 August 1967, the Marine, etc., Broadcasting (Offences) ActMarine Broadcasting Offences Act
The Marine, &c., Broadcasting Act 1967 c.41, shortened to Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, became law in the United Kingdom at midnight on Monday, August 14, 1967 and was repealed by the...
came into effect in the United Kingdom. The intention and effect was to create a criminal offence for any person who supplied music, commentary, advertising, fuel, food, water or any other assistance except for life-saving purposes, to any ship, offshore structure such as a former WWII fort, or flying platform such as an aircraft used for broadcasting without a licence granted by the regulatory authority for broadcasting in the UK.
Despite some initial plans to the contrary Radio London decided not to defy the law and to close before the Act came into effect.
It was decided to close at 3pm on 14 August 1967. The timing was chosen partly because it would guarantee the station a large audience and also to enable the broadcasting staff on board the MV Galaxy to return to shore and board a train to London. A one hour recorded show was broadcast from 2pm to 3pm to allow the staff to get ready to leave the ship. The time also described an "L" shape on the clock face, though whether this was a consideration is unknown.
Their Final Hour, as the programme was called, celebrated recorded greetings of farewell and remembrance from recording stars of the day. Included were the voices of Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
, Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
and Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
. Managing director Birch thanked the DJs and staff and others involved throughout the station's life, as well as the politicians and others who fought for the station – and its 12 million listeners in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the Netherlands, Belgium and France'. This was followed by the last record A Day in the Life by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. This was followed by Paul Kaye's final announcement: "Big L time is now three o'clock, and Radio London is now closing down." The station's theme tune, the "PAMS Sonowaltz", popularly called Big Lil was the last music heard before the transmitter was turned off just after 3pm.
Just after Radio London closed down, Robbie Dale
Robbie Dale
Robbie Dale 'The Admiral' was born in Littleborough, Lancashire, England on 21 April 1940.Dale was one of the DJs on the offshore pirate radio ship Radio Caroline on 14 August 1967 with Johnnie Walker, when the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act came into effect. At its peak, the station had 23...
on Radio Caroline South (previously Radio Atlanta) broadcast a brief tribute to the station, thanked its staff and DJs, and held a minute's silence.
Most of the offshore stations had already left the air. Radio Scotland
Radio Scotland
Radio Scotland was an offshore pirate radio station broadcasting on 1241 kHz mediumwave , created by Tommy Shields in 1965. The station was located on the former lightship M.V...
and Radio 270
Radio 270
Radio 270 was a pirate radio station serving Yorkshire and the North East of England from 1966 to 1967. It broadcast from a converted Dutch lugger called Oceaan 7 positioned in international waters off Scarborough, North Yorkshire.-Origins :...
closed at midnight. Radio Caroline South announced that both it and Radio Caroline North (the original Caroline) would continue. Owner Ronan O'Rahilly
Ronan O'Rahilly
Ronan O'Rahilly is an Irish businessman best known for the creation of the offshore radio station, Radio Caroline.O'Rahilly's parents owned the private port of Greenore in Carlingford Lough, County Louth...
said they were defending the principle of free broadcasting, rather than being mere business assets. (Caroline's offshore broadcasts continued on and off until 1990, after which the station pursued legal means of broadcasting.)
When the Radio London staff arrived at London's Liverpool Street station
Liverpool Street station
Liverpool Street railway station, also known as London Liverpool Street or simply Liverpool Street, is both a central London railway terminus and a connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, England...
later that night they were greeted by large numbers of fans (some wearing black armbands and carrying placards with slogans such as "Freedom died with Radio London") the fans attempted to storm the platform leading to minor scuffles with police.
The MV Galaxy sailed to West Germany, where Erwin Meister
Erwin Meister
Erwin Meister is a Swiss businessman who, with his partner Edwin Bollier, formed the company Mebo Telecommunications in 1969. They bought a Dutch freighter, renamed it Mebo II, and converted it into an offshore radio station.-RNI:...
and Edwin Bollier
Edwin Bollier
Edwin Bollier and his partner, Erwin Meister, founded Mebo Telecommunications AG in Zürich, Switzerland in 1969.-Radio Nordsee International:...
attempted to buy it for what became Radio Nordsee International
Radio Nordsee International
Radio Nordsee International may refer to:*Radio Northsea, Radio Nordzee, now called TROS, broadcast from a man made island in 1964*Radio Nordzee International, original name of the 1970's radio station, Radio Delmare...
. When the deal fell through Meister and Bollier set about finding another ship. In 1979 the Galaxy, with its 212 ft mast still erect, was sunk in Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
harbour as an artificial reef
Reef
In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
. By 1986 concerns about pollution from the ship's oil tanks led to its being raised and broken up.
Further history
When his second radio ship venture closed and the vessel returned to Miami, FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, in 1967, Don Pierson attempted to restart Wonderful Radio London from there. His plan was to interest investors in restarting Radio London from off New York. When that failed, he began a venture involving yet another ship which would restart Wonderful Radio London off San Diego, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. That, too, sank.
In 1982 Pierson helped promote a syndicated Wonderful Radio London Show, first aired over KVMX, a station he owned in Eastland, Texas. He promoted the show at the National Association of Broadcasters
National Association of Broadcasters
The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...
convention in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
. When Ben Toney, the original offshore Radio London program director, became involved, the show was aired on KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas and as a daily show aired over 250,000 watt XERF in Mexico. Further plans were made to extend the early morning airtime of XERF into Wonderful Radio London as a full service station and to send a new ship to the UK as Wonderful Radio London International (WRLI), in the hopes of replicating Radio London's success of the 1960s. However, these further plans failed to materialize beyond their syndication stage.
Pierson died in 1996.
Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio
As a result of his Radio London initiative, Pierson created Swinging Radio EnglandSwinging Radio England
Swinging Radio England was a top 40 offshore commercial station billed as the "World's Most Powerful" that operated from 3 May 1966 to 13 November 1966 from a ship in the North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England...
and Britain Radio on board another ship in 1965. However, these stations did not get on the air until 1966 when their vessel anchored close to Big L on board the MV Galaxy. The twin stations were not commercially successful due to technical problems and mismanagement. Dutch station Radio Dolfijn replaced Radio England in November 1966. Radio 355 replaced Britain Radio and Dolfijn gave way to Radio Twee Twee Zeven (227) in early 1967.
In pop culture
- Wonderful Radio London is referred to (and some of its jingles used) on The WhoThe WhoThe Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
's album The Who Sell OutThe Who Sell Out-Track listing:All songs written by Pete Townshend except where noted. The between song jingles apparently have no official titles and are not listed anywhere on the original album packaging, though they are listed in the inner booklet of the 1995 remaster.Side one...
. - Wonderful Radio London also features in The WhoThe WhoThe Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
film QuadropheniaQuadrophenia (film)Quadrophenia is a 1979 British film, loosely based around the 1973 rock opera of the same name by The Who. The film stars Phil Daniels as a Mod named Jimmy. It was directed by Franc Roddam in his feature directing debut...
. - The station features in the 1966 film Dateline Diamonds, which includes a few external shots of the Galaxy and a fanciful studio re-creation of its interior.
- Radio London was parodied in the film The Boat That RockedThe Boat That RockedThe Boat That Rocked is a 2009 British comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis, with pirate radio in the United Kingdom during the 1960s as its setting. The film has an ensemble cast featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, and Kenneth Branagh...
.
See also
- The Perfumed GardenThe Perfumed Garden (radio show)The Perfumed Garden was the title given by John Peel to his 1967 late-night programme on the British pirate radio station, Radio London. After several years of work in US commercial pop radio, Peel joined the station in March 1967, on returning to the UK from California. As well as various slots on...
- See Radio LondonRadio LondonRadio London may refer to one of the following radio stations:*A popular name for the BBC World Service in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II*The station now known as BBC London 94.9...
for other stations that have used this name or its variations in whole or in part. Several stations are listed.
Other sources
- Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA, by Gilder, Eric. - "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu Press, Romania. 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6 - Contains reprinted work from 'The History of Pirate Radio in Britain and the End of BBC Monopoly in Radio Broadcasting in the United Kingdom' by Eric Gilder, North Texas State University, 1982. "London My Hometown", the second chapter, tells the Pierson story from his perspective and from original and exclusive archives. The chapter began as a 2000 audio-visual symposium called "Infinite Londons" sponsored in Romania by the British Council. The symposium's expanded proceedings later appeared in this book.
- The Wonderful Radio London Story, by Elliot, Chris. - Ray Anderson doing business as East Anglian Productions, Frinton-on-Sea, United Kingdom. 1997 ISBN 1-901854-00-0 - This was derived allegedly without permission from the archives Eric Gilder and Associates claim. (see note above.) The publisher was declared insolvent under UK law and it later turned out that the printer, designer and author had received no payment. The origins of this book's connection with Gilder lay in 1984's Wonderful Radio London International (WRLI) project, for which Elliot recorded the Wonderful Radio London Fab 40 in the UK – for KVMX and KXOL in Texas and XERF in Mexico to rebroadcast. When the WRLI venture came to an end, Elliot (born Christopher Gaydon, 1953) allegedly kept files on Pierson borrowed from Gilder – and later arranged for their publication under his name in two publications before the book appeared. This contains photographs and some hitherto unknown information, but it is not documented and it gives no credits. .
External links
- Wonderful Radio London in the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame - Contains many audio, visual and text biographical stories relating to personal involved in the 1964-1967 venture.
- Wonderful Radio London story by Eric Gilder - Contains an in-depth sequence of events relating to the history of the Don Pierson archives and publications that have drawn upon them.
- The Radio London website - Run by Chris and Mary Payne of Radio London Ltd, the site contains over 1600 pages, a full collection of Big L Fab Forties and many "Where Are They Now?" biographical stories about personnel involved with both Radio London and many other offshore stations.
- Bassett's Jelly Baby Show ' report by Kenny Everett on the Beatles' 1966 tour of the US (Requires player for Real Audio files)