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RADIO JACKIE A summary of the most successful community pirate station turned legal independent station By Mike Smith |
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While the glory days of 'pirate radio' was in the 1960's, pirate stations continue to this day. The name Radio Caroline continued to be present for many years on the MW dial from the Mi Amigo and later the Ross Revenge.
Land Based
Two years after the effective demise of the offshore pirates in August 1967, the most famous of a new beed of pirate stations began broadcasting to South west London. The station was Radio Jackie. Many land based pirate stations have come and gone since, but Radio Jackie was one of the most long lived.
Jackie started life in March 1969 as a Sunday only station providing a good signal and quality programmes to the area on 197metres (1525 KHz) with around 50 Watts. Later in 1969 the frequency was changed to 227 metres (1331kHZ). Programmes ran for six hours per day and sounded lively and local. In 1971 Jackie added programmes on saturday nights on 94.4 MHz VHF.
The station gained a large local audience and support from local businesses and councillors. In March 1972 a tape recording was played in Parliament during a reading of the Sound Broadcasting Bill to demonstrate the possibilities of local independent radio. The Sound Broadcasting Act that followed gave responibilities for sound broadcasting to the ITA, which was renamed the IBA. This paved the way for the franchising of ILR stations across the UK.
Radio Jackie continued to grow, Jackie's lawyers had found a loophole in the Wireless Telegraphy Act and by 1982 the station was operating 24 hours a day, seven days per week, and was fighting to gain a legitimate licence to broadcast to the area. There was support from MPs, including Angela Rumbold, and Kingston Council for a station that had contributed much to the local community and charities in the area.
By 1984 the IBA (the organisation that the Radio Jackie tape had helped to create) was campaigning against the station and pressuring the government to have it closed down. The loophole in the law was eventually closed. In November of 1984 the ILR station Radio Mercury served a writ against the owner of Radio Jackie, Tony Collis, in an attempt to have the station taken off the air. Radio Mercury claimed that Radio Jackie was taking its audience and revenue, even though the two stations covered entirely different areas!
In February 1985 the station was raided three times by the DTI and finally put off the air on Monday 4th February 1985 after 16 years of broadcasting. There was much protest from listeners and councillors who viewed the station as being beneficial to the area.
In 1985 the IBA announced plans to introduce experimental 'community radio stations' across the UK. Radio Jackie did not recieve a licence as the plan failed. In 1990 the IBA gave way to the Radio Authority which advertised a local licence for the South West London area in1996 - eleven years too late. Radio Jackie applied for the licence but for some odd reason lost out to Thames Radio. Fortunately for Jackie fans Thames Radio was never a real financial success and they eventually sold on the licence to the group behind Radio Jackie for the princely sum of £1 in 2003.
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On 19th October 2003 the Radio Jackie name was restored to its rightful place on the radio dials of South West London - this time 107.8 FM!
Radio Jackie can also be heard live on the internet - click on the logo above to go to the site and hear the audio stream. Welcome back Radio Jackie!
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