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In November 1957 Tony Benn opened discussion on broadasting policy in the Labour party public information group by advcating the creation of two public radio corporations, two public television corporations (including the ITA) all allowed to carry advertising. "The reception was fairly frosty".
The full proposal Tony Benn supported as a replacement for the offshore radio stations was put to the House of Commons on August 3 1966 as a ten minute rule bill by Hugh Jenkins, the chair of the 9 member Labour Party communications group. Tony Benn had attended several of their meetings: "Leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable the Postmaster-General to establish a Television and Radio Authority for the purpose of running the fourth Television Channel, setting up a National Popular Radio Programme and acting as parent station to local radio stations" all being mainly or fully financed by advertising His short speech here
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1966/aug/03/broadcasting-enabling#S5CV0733P0_19660803_HOC_281
In his diaries Tony Benn says he met Frank Gillard of the BBC on 6 April 1966. He told him that the BBC would be able to offer Radio 247 "a service from 5am to 2am with entertainment music on the medium wave band for the teenage audience by opting out of the Light Programme. His problem is money. But it would be mad to raise the licence fee for something that could be provided for nothing by advertising."
This was reported by the press to have majority Cabinet Support. The Musicians Union, National Union of Journalists, The Association of Broadcasting Staff and the Newspaper Society were among those who met Edward Short to object to it. The BBC in late 1966 then said it could provide a national pop music service without raising the licence fee , savings made include delaying the development of Pebble Mill, thus gaining majority Cabinet support. So we ended up with a part time Radio One sharing programmes with Radio Two for much of the time.
In 1983 Tony Benn was interviewed for the opening broadcast of landbased pirate Sheffield Peace Radio, who were involved in the first broadcast from unlicenced Radio Avalon to that years Glastonbury Festival. He condemned the BBC/IBA duopoly as the voice of the establishment. Recording of that part of the speech here (40 seconds)
https://twitter.com/openlab_ncl/status/1185117196374216706
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Land based commercial radio in 1967 would only have been successful if the government had outlawed various restrictive practices to allow it to play enough records. Otherwise it would have run up against the same problems with 'needle time' that Radio 1 had, without the ability to share time with Radio 2. This was relaxed somewhat in 1972, in time for ILR, but not removed until 1988 when the Monopolies Commission ruled against it.
(On the subject of Harold Wilson's listening habits, Crossman in his Diaries reports on a cabinet meeting where Wilson rants on about something he had heard on Radio 1 that morning!) Previous Message
Indeed Mark.
On the day after the general election of 1966 Wilson “refused to take part in a BBC interview on the express train that was taking him back to London from his constituency…. Instead Wilson readily gave an ITN interview to John Whale”. (Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol V, page 557)
Up to the Radio City incident there was no hurry to close the pirates. “Benn was cheered when, at what seemed to be a crucial meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Broadcasting on 22 November 1965, piracy was pushed on one side and it was agreed that new and long delayed White Paper on broadcasting should be prepared”. (Briggs page 541)
Benn’s proposal was a “pop music network separately organised from the BBC and incorporating advertisements”. (Briggs, page 545)
Ted Allbeury (Radio 390) on Benn: “When Wedgie Benn was postmaster general he was absolutely civilised, made no nonsense about it all and said no of course they’re not pirates, they’re just ordinary businessmen who have found a loophole in the law, which eventually we will close, which I found sane and perfectly all right”. (Offshore Echos No 26, December 1978). Previous Message
Correct, people often miss this, but Harold Wilson and Tony Benn were both fans of Radio 390 and wanted a commercial alternative to offshore radio in 1967, it was the BBC who scuppered that, and as you say neither Wilson or Benn were fans of the BBC.
Of course the MOA would have happened regardless of which party was in power in the UK, they began drafting that even before Caroline as a result of the clauses in the Strasbourg Treaty which they were keen to ratify. The MOA was drafted by the civil servant Director of Radio Services, Peter Lillicrap, started under PMG Reginald Bevin in the Conservative government prior to Wilson. Previous Message
“Aside from his vendetta against Harold Wilson”... Ronan missed an opportunity there since Harold had a well documented near-vendetta against the BBC, especially around the time of the March 1966 general election, and there had already been the UK Gov cooperation with Project Atlanta. But the Radio City incident in June 1966 closed that opportunity and what followed was inevitable.
It’s around-about March 1973 and I am walking southwards along the east side of the Tweede Binnenhaven in Scheveningen, heading for the Trip Tender to go back out to the Mebo II.
I noticed some activity on one of the Oceaan VII type sport-fishing boats that Caroline used as tenders, as credit allowed. Low and behold there is Ronan on deck. So he asks me something along the lines of what we on RNI thought of Caroline coming back. And I reply something along the lines that as far as I was concerned it was more the merrier. To which Ronan replies, and these are his actual words, “That is very socialist of you”! Previous Message
Ronan's M.O followed a repetitive path to get others to invest and first to take a cut from that sum and put it in a safe place such as Lichtenstein. Then he would spend the investors money in a manner of his choosing.
He wanted the Ross to be called ' Imagine ' in honour of John Lennon but this did not happen.
He wanted the ship to be painted pink as this is the colour of healing. The crew rebelled and painted it signal red.
He wanted a Gold music format but the crew ignored that and reverted to album music.
He wanted to use 558 and Peter C put it on 319.
Mostly he said that Caroline could not just 'come back' , it had to be bigger and better than before. The mast was in part built to suit 558 but also to be visually impressive. It surely was impressive and then it fell down and put the station out of business. Well done.
Ronan always ( aside from his vendetta against Harold Wilson ) kept away from politics and politically motivated gestures. He wanted to fly under the radar and not make waves.
PM. Previous Message
On another forum, someone has compared The Ross's original oversized 300ft mast, to being symbolic of Ronan's finger - up to the British establishment.
Do you think there was any truth in that, Peter? (& others)
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Ronan's middle finger ! - Freddie Archer 28/8/2023, 10:11:41
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