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PIRATE RADIO WILL NOT GO AWAY

 

Amin Aetta Forna reports on why it is so popular with the young 

AT the Limelight Club In London's Shaftes­bury Avenue, a huge banner slung above the dance floor proclaims: LWR 92,5 FM London's Music Frequency. A cake in the shape of a "ghetto blaster" is elaborately iced with the message "Happy 4th Birthday."

LWR — London Weekend Radio, one of the capital's foremost "pirate" radio stations, with a following among young music lovers, is celebrating four years of illegal broadcasting. In spite of frequent raids by the Department of Trade and Industry (their transmitting equipment has been seized four times since mid-December) they still managed to put out a professional-sounding 24-hour show.

Steve is a 16-year-old sixth former and LWR's youngest DJ. Before joining LWR last summer he had his own "pirate" station which he set up from his South London bedroom using a small transmitter and his own extensive record collection.

Like all LWR DJs Steve is unpaid and works "for the love of it." "London needs "pirates", "he says. "We give young people the sort of sounds they can't get on the legal stations". Steve hosts a "hip hop" show, an ultra-modern disco rap sound which requires skilled "mixing" by the DJ, certainly unlike anything heard on Radio 1.

The last months of 1986 saw a resurgence in pirate radio activity after the cancellation of the Home Office Community Radio scheme which would have offered licenses for 25 new local radio stations. Stuart Paterson of the Independent Broadcasting Authority says: "I have often heard material on 'pirate' radio which is risque, if not obscene." Some stations, like Radio Enoch, use the airwaves to broadcast political messages.

The IBA's main objection to the pirates, however, is the fact that the illegal stations pay no copyright levies. Independent Local Radio alone paid some £7 million in the last financial year.

Last year, the Department of Trade and Industry carried out nearly 200 raids on the pirates. Some were back on the air in a matter of days.

There is no suggestion that the expected Green Paper will relax the law. It remains illegal to broadcast without a licence or even to tune into a pirate station. But to some people, that is half the fun. As Brian West of the AIRC points out: "The pirates are beginning to build up a following of young people. It's felt to be brave to listen to someone who's cocking a snook at the law."

Radio pirates are swarming back.

Despite tough new legislation, the Government seems powerless to prevent a pirate radio renaissance. A new generation of stations broadcasting from ships in the North Sea are evading all national and international sanctions, while pirate stations operating onshore regularly avoid detection because the Department of Trade and Industry's radio regulation section has not the resources to catch them all, officials admit.

More than 50 stations can now be heard regularly in London, while many more operate intermittently. They range from large American-backed offshore stations to individuals broadcasting from a bedroom for a few hours on a Sunday morning.

In between, minority interests are catered for by ethnic and foreign language services, and by stations offering unbroken diets of particular kinds of music.

 

PRE-READING TASK

I. There are different types of radio stations: state-owned, independent, pirate radio stations. What is the difference between them?

 

WORD STUDY

II. Join the words to make word combinations. Use the necessary articles and prepositions:

banner foremost to host skilled ghetto risque resurgence objection to carry copyright to relax to tune to build

raids levies material show following law pirates mixing radio station slung blaster radio station activity

 

III.  Find English equivalents in the text:

1. приверженцы
2. выпускать шоу
3. вести (передачу)
4. непристойный (материал)
5. выйти в эфир снова
6. основать радиостанцию

 

COMPREHENSION

IV. Explain the following:

1. banner 2. ghetto blaster 3. foremost (radio station) 4. "mixing" 5. the Green Paper

6. transmitter 7. to relax the law 8. copyright levies 9. to operate intermittently 10. onshore-offshore stations

 

V. Answer the questions:

1. What kind of programmes do pirate radio stations transmit?
2. Who owns them?
3. Who are the listeners?
4. Why are pirate radio stations especially popular with the young?
5. Why do you think are these radio station compared to pirates?

 

FOLLOW-UP

VI. Find out about pirate radio stations existing in Belarus: what sort of programmes, music they transmit, if they are popular, who listens to them, etc.

 

VII. Discuss the questions:

1. Are there not enough legal radio stations? Give the reasons for appearance and existence of pirate radio stations.
2. What is your point of view on the problem? Should pirate radio stations exist or be banned? Give your reasons.