[cma-l] Pirates ahoy! Is legal radio boring? (Guardian Blogs, 23 July 2008)

[Salvatore Scifo]

Source:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2008/07/legal_radio_is_boring_pirates.html

Pirates ahoy! Is legal radio boring?
When pirate stations turn legit, it's good for the community - but do 
they lose their attraction?
July 23, 2008 8:30 AM

South London teenagers are to be granted one month from next week to 
call for peace in the streets over the FM airwaves. Backed by Richard 
Blackwood and rapper Bashy, Reprezent, a youth offshoot of internet 
community station South City Radio, is tasked with pushing home an 
anti-knife message from its Peckham base.

In April, Peace FM was given a five-year licence to broadcast from Moss 
Side in Manchester. At about that time, the internet station Radio 
Salaam Shalom, funded by a government scheme, on a mission to increase 
dialogue between Muslims and Jews in Bristol, celebrated its first birthday.

All well and worthy, and it seems Elvis Costello's pleas in Radio Radio 
30 years ago - a protest against radio's crass commercial agenda - may 
have been heeded.

Yet is this latest wave of legal community radio our sound salvation? If 
it were, would there be any need for pirates? As it is, the airwaves are 
filled with as much, if not more, illegal activity, as in the glory days 
of the eighties.

While committed hoodlums tweak their transmitters on the tops of towers 
and play cat-and-mouse with the authorities, Radio Salaam Shalom's staff 
have taken off on a summer break and Peace FM has scraped together just 
enough funds to broadcast for a month. Reprezent, despite its celebrity 
endorsements, will be jostling for space, attention and credibility with 
dozens of powerhouse pirates, not least soca giant Tempo or the 
17-year-old junglist Kool FM.

Call me irresponsible, I don't care: the more interference and the more 
free expression on the FM waveband the better.

Not to dismiss legal community radio. Usually it represents the people 
commercial stations and the BBC don't reach. But organisations, 
increasingly hiring consultants, must jump through so many hoops to 
satisfy Ofcom and adhere to such a rigid code of conduct it takes all 
the fun out of the medium.

Like the freedom of Castlemorton as opposed to the dance conformity of 
Ministry of Sound, and the sheer thrill of a good guerrilla gig, pirate 
radio is an essential reminder that the people cannot be clamped down.

By obeying Ofcom, former pirates have either become community outlets 
drowning in red tape and censored by stringent rules of conduct or 
commercial clones, swallowed up by media giants, governed by 
shareholders and bland market forces - prime examples are Kiss FM's 
descent from acid-house harbinger and Bristol's FTP (For The People) sad 
metamorphosis from a homegrown hip-hop conduit to the glossy Vibe.

And it's not just fans of grime, UK garage and other predominantly black 
music that are missing out when the radio cops pull down a transmitter. 
There was an outpouring of grief last year, including from pensioners 
living alone, when Ofcom ripped down a Sussex transmitter that had been 
illegally beaming the (legal) French station FIP to Brighton and the 
south coast for the past 10 years.

In an echo of how Radio Luxembourg brought salvation from 1933 - and 
later Alan Freed's Moondog rock'n'roll primer - to musically barren 
airwaves strangled by the BBC, as Caroline and the other offshore 
pirates did in the 1960s, FIP scratched an itch that other radio 
couldn't. With its rampantly eclectic playlist with no commercials and 
only the briefest of announcements, Brighton DIY enthusiasts turned its 
broadcasts into a club night.

Brighton's recently licensed RadioReverb has taken some of FIP's 
innovative approach to programming on board, and Gloucester's GFM can 
sometimes be mistaken for a pirate for some of the DJ stylings, were it 
not for the cheesy ad breaks. GFM made its month-long legal debut to 
mark Jamaica's Independence Day, but it faces an uphill struggle to play 
the game properly with funding and ensuring it adheres to a strict 
community remit, agreed with Ofcom.

The pirates may not pay their copyright dues for the music they play nor 
necessarily spread the most commendable messages to listeners but at 
least they are non-contrived and not drowning in red tape. They will 
always bring comfort to the socially inhibited stay-at-homes and 
life-affirming rabble-rousers. Most of all, however many raids they 
suffer, there's just no stopping them. So hoist the Jolly Roger and set 
sail for horizons ever anew.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note that there are comments available on the webpage of this blog
at  
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2008/07/legal_radio_is_boring_pirates.html