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"''a full article on the history of offshore pirate radio would be useful.''" Moved by [[User:A-giau|A-giau]] 05:15, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
== Anonymous contributor text ==
"The story of British pirate radio began in France almost at the birth of broadcasting in the United Kingdom. In 1924, both UK electrial companies and USA subsidiary electrical companies trading in Britain, were thrust together to form a single broadcasting monopoly. It was originally called the British Broadcasting Company and later renamed the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927 and it was the only station to be awarded a British Broadcasting Licence. The only means of providing competion to the BBC was by establishing commercial radio stations in countries from which signals could be beamed into the UK.
One of the first of these stations was Radio Normandie in France. It soon became part of a large network of such stations both in France and in other countries.
The most famous of these continental transmitters was Radio Luxembourg in the adjoining Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
All of these stations were very popular in Britain and their demise only came about due to invasion of their host countries by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Prior to becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill used one of the stations in France after being prevented from speaking over the BBC to the electorate of the UK. By 1938 a poll showed that 80% of British listeners were tuned to these stations on Sundays when John Reith, General Manager of the BBC, favored heavy doses of religious programming instead of the light entertainment provided by the "Continental Stations" as their were called by listeners. The British Government and the BBC branded them as "pirates" stealing the British audience.
After WWII only Radio Luxembourg managed to come back on the air with commercial radio for the UK. The British Government did its best to close the station down again by branding it a "pirate" once more. At that time all British listeners had to buy a wireless license to listen to the radio and the conditions of that license made it an offense for British listeners to tune their sets to stations which were not authorized to be heard by the British General Post Office, which at the time regulated all broadcasting in Britain"
I am saving this text by an anonymous contributor that was reverted. I don't think it's vadalism. While not of encyclopedic quality (It's hard to read that Luxemburg was "French"). I think it opens new horizons as it introduce the concept that we call "radios périphèriques" in French (maybe "peripheral radios" ?). This a radio that is broadcasting in a country were it's legal to acountry were it isn't because of monopoly or censorship. Is the difference pure semantics or not ? In France it's obvious that some peripheral radios where coined as "pirate" by the French governement while other where "peripheral". This went as far to the creation of SOFIRAD a state-owned company that buyed most of the stock of "peripheral radios". It's worth to notice that the situation in France parllels the situatiçon the UK, while some small countries hosted peripheral radio just like they played the card of being "tax paradises".
[[User:Ericd|Ericd]] 20:00, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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