[cma-l] Grime Rinse FM pirate radio station goes legit

[Tony Bailey]

OK, although not strictly community licences, remember WNKR/LGR (London 
Greek Radio)?  In those days you had to be busted every day for a year 
to get a licence from the IBA in London - not much has changed has it.

Tony Bailey


b.mole at talk21.com wrote:
> Seeing this article made my blood boil!
> 
> WCR Community Radio hear in Warminster has been broadcasting legitimately for nearly 15 years forced to use RSLs in an area banned by the CRO. Spending tens of thousands of pounds to Ofcom, PRS PPL and the like over this time. This group have paid nothing by breaking the law and are now rewarded with a licence! On the other hand the CRO and the ban was repealed in January this year and STILL we at WCR are waiting to be allowed to apply!!
> 
> Lets hear a cheer for the pirates then guys...honesty obviously doesn't pay
> 
> Barry Mole
> WCR Community Radio (still in waiting)
> 
> --- On Mon, 11/10/10, CMA-L <cma-l at commedia.org.uk> wrote:
> 
>> From: CMA-L <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
>> Subject: [cma-l] Grime Rinse FM pirate radio station goes legit
>> To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk, comradio-l at commedia.org.uk
>> Date: Monday, 11 October, 2010, 10:54
>> After 16 years broadcasting from east
>> London rooftops, influential
>> station started by DJ Geneeus wins Ofcom licence
>>
>> Alexandra Topping
>> Sunday 10 October 2010 19.18 BST
>> Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/10/rinse-fm-ofcom-licence
>>
>> DJ Geeneus was 16 when he broadcast his first pirate radio
>> show from a
>> tower block in Tower Hamlets, east London.
>>
>> With decks and mixer balancing precariously on top of a
>> homemade
>> transmitter jammed between the sink and the cooker of his
>> friend's
>> 18th floor flat, Geeneus leant out of the window, pointed
>> his aerial
>> towards Hackney – and turned the music up loud.
>>
>> Sixteen years, countless rooftop broadcasts and dozens of
>> brushes with
>> the law later, Rinse FM, often called the most influential
>> pirate
>> station on air and credited with bringing artists such as
>> Dizzee
>> Rascal and grime star Wileyto the public consciousness, is
>> finally
>> going legit, to the slightly bemused delight of its
>> 32-year-old
>> founder. "Getting the licence gave me the strangest
>> feelings. Nothing
>> don't faze me ... but that did," he said.
>>
>> Will he miss anything about being a pirate? "Getting on the
>> roof," he
>> says. "Now I know I'm never going to do it again, I'm going
>> to miss
>> it."
>>
>> As well as running successful club nights in London, the
>> station also
>> has a label that has just seen artist Katy B make it into
>> the top five
>> of the UK charts. Her track On A Mission has been viewed
>> more than
>> 2.7m times on YouTube.
>>
>> Geeneus, who goes by the name G and whose real name remains
>> a mystery
>> even to many friends, set up Rinse with a group of friends
>> including
>> the grime star Wiley and grime DJ Slimzee, because other
>> pirate
>> stations told them they were too young to be on air. "We
>> didn't know
>> what we were doing, but it was great. We didn't switch off
>> the whole
>> time, someone would be DJ-ing while someone else was flaked
>> out on the
>> floor. We freestyled — and we still are, really."
>>
>> Geeneus reckons he has transmitted from every tower block
>> in east
>> London. "I've been arrested about 15-20 times," he said.
>> "Never been
>> charged though, I always managed to talk my way out of it."
>> He fared
>> better than Slimzee — who was rewarded for his time spent
>> on Tower
>> Hamlets rooftops with an ASBO banning him from going above
>> the fifth
>> floor of any building in the area.
>>
>> In the early years, the station operated on a shoestring,
>> with Geeneus
>> scrounging for £1 subs from DJs, asking for transmitters
>> for Christmas
>> and stealing the cables from his mum's iron and vacuum
>> cleaner to stay
>> on air.
>>
>> "We sold everything we had to keep it going", he said.
>> "That
>> excitement of listening to radio just drew us in. You hear
>> a good show
>> and you just want to get over there and get on air."
>>
>> Things changed when Geeneus met Sarah Lockhart, 35, who was
>> working
>> for a record label distributor handing out test pressings
>> to pirate
>> DJs to create a buzz about the tracks. Five years ago she
>> quit her
>> job, the two joined forces, and the battle to get a licence
>> began. "We
>> were both obsessive about new music and the station but
>> because it was
>> illegal you couldn't talk about it and we wanted to change
>> that," she
>> says.
>>
>> Lockhart, like Geeneus, left school without any
>> qualifications, but
>> the 100-page application document submitted to Ofcom was
>> largely her
>> work. "That was like my degree – and I passed," she
>> said.
>>
>> After dozens of meetings, setbacks and disappointments
>> Rinse was
>> granted a community licence on 17 June. Unlike a commercial
>> licence,
>> they cannot sell it on for profit and as part of the deal
>> the station
>> must continually prove its worth to the community it
>> serves. Geeneus
>> and Lockhart have already set up the Rinse Academy, giving
>> hands-on
>> training and opportunities for budding MCs and DJs to
>> shine.
>>
>> "Pirate radio has been like a pressure valve for kids every
>> since
>> Radio Caroline and we are carrying on with that," said
>> Lockhart, who
>> also wants to work with pupil referral units, the last
>> landing places
>> for difficult children kicked out of the standard school
>> system.
>>
>> Geneeus insists that radio kept him on the straight and
>> narrow.
>>
>> "Everyone I knew at school is in prison," he says. "I do
>> feel a
>> responsibility to show young people that there is an
>> alternative. That
>> there are other ways of doing what you want in life."
>>
>> In their small but impressively professional new studio on
>> a trendy
>> east London backstreet, its clear the station has come a
>> long way.
>> Heated episodes, such as Wiley spending his show drunkenly
>> berating a
>> rival only to have the DJ turn up at the studio with his
>> crew, are a
>> thing of the past.
>>
>> "It's very different," says breakfast DJ Scratcha. "When I
>> started you
>> had to climb in through a secret opening in a shop shutter
>> and pull
>> yourself up into this little room called the treehouse.
>> Over the years
>> it just got better and better."
>>
>> In the middle of his set, DJ Dappa turns down the pounding
>> beat for a
>> moment to shout out to the Clapton crew, but these days -
>> thanks to
>> the station's internet broadcasts - he could be hailing
>> listeners in
>> Denmark or Detroit.
>>
>> Geneeus insists that the success – and new-found
>> acceptance into the
>> legal broadcasting world – is not going to change how
>> things get done
>> at Rinse. Listeners shouldn't expect pop music or car
>> insurance
>> adverts. "I'd rather be pirate and do what I want than
>> legal and do
>> something I can't stand," he said.
>>
>> What then, does the future hold? "I don't know ... a
>> national licence
>> would be nice," he said with a smile. "We are just going to
>> go on
>> doing what we do — but amplified."
>>
>> Pirates that rode the waves
>>
>> Radio Caroline The most legendary pirate station of them
>> all, Caroline
>> broadcast from a former passenger ferry anchored off the
>> coast of
>> Suffolk. Founded in 1964 by businessmen Ronan O'Rahilly and
>> Oliver
>> Smedley, the station was home to DJs such as Chris Moore
>> – who
>> presented its first show – Tony Blackburn, Johnnie Walker
>> and Robbie
>> Dale.
>>
>> London Weekend Radio Run by Jonny Haywood and Keith Green,
>> , London
>> Weekend Radio began broadcasting from Lawrie Park Road in
>> Sydenham
>> over bank holiday weekends in 1981. Radio Luxembourg's
>> Peter Anthony
>> worked under the guise of Oscar J and Pete Tong and Tim
>> Westwood also
>> got their first breaks at the station.
>>
>> Dread Broadcasting Corporation Sometimes credited as
>> Britain's first
>> black music radio station, DBC was set up in west London in
>> 1981.
>> Calling itself "rebel radio" it played reggae, soul and
>> R&B and
>> provided a platform for presenters and singers such as
>> Ranking Miss P
>> and Neneh Cherry.
>>
>> Kiss FM Founded in London in 1985 by Gordon Mac, the
>> station played
>> edgy new music and provided a platform for new talent such
>> as Judge
>> Jules and Trevor Nelson. It was granted a licence in 1990
>> and was
>> eventually sold to the media giant Emap, moving to a more
>> mainstream
>> output.
>>
>> Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/10/rinse-fm-ofcom-licence
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