Radio London History 2

Radio London - History (2)

Radio London started to promote 'Disc Shows' at London's Marquee Club, in Wardour Street during the summer of 1965. These Shows, which were hosted by Radio London DJs, on shore leave were in fact forerunners of what would now be called discos and were staged between 2.30pm and 5.30pm each Saturday afternoon. Big L Fan Club members were entitled to a reduced admission charge on production of their Club membership card.

1966

During the evening of 11th January 1966, in a Force 8 gale, the Radio London ship Galaxy began to drag her anchor and drift towards the shore. At 2.45am on 12th January 1966 Walton-on-the-Naze coastguards requested the Clacton lifeboat to launch, but by that time the Radio London crew had managed to start the Galaxy's engines and were able to prevent the ship drifting any further towards land. When the immediate drama was over the Galaxy was found to have drifted some 4 miles from her anchorage and was only 2 miles from Clacton beach, clearly inside British territorial waters. Because of this transmissions did not start as usual at 6.00am that morning and it was not until the Galaxy was back at her anchorage in international waters that Radio London was eventually able to resume broadcasts after seven hours of silence.

In February 1966 Radio London reached an agreement with the Performing Rights Society for the station to pay fees (on a percentage of advertising revenue basis) for an initial period of three years, to be followed after that by an agreed fixed-rate payment.

At the beginning of 1966 DJs on Radio London were paid about £50 per week (compared to Radio Caroline's £25). Radio London DJs could also earn as much again in their week off the ship through personal appearances at shop openings, pop gigs and other events organised by or booked through Philip Birch's own agency which also operated from the station's Curzon Street headquarters. In June 1966 the Big L Discos were launched at Wimbledon Palais, with live appearances by DJs on shore leave.

Having survived the winter storms Radio London continued to capture listeners and advertisers from the troubled Radio Caroline South, which during the first few months of 1966 was either off the air completely (because its ship, Mi Amigo, had run aground and was docked for repairs) or operating on much reduced power from its temporary base, the ex-Radio Syd ship Cheeta 2.

In May 1966, after Caroline South returned from the Mi Amigo with a new stronger transmitter and wavelength change Radio London boosted its own transmitter output to 75Kw. However, the station also had plans for even greater expansion in two other directions.

The first of these was to follow Radio Caroline's example and establish a sister station serving the north of England from an anchorage in the Irish Sea, using the call sign Radio Manchester. Staff from Radio London even examined the Cheeta 2 after Radio Caroline South had finished using her, with a view to the ship becoming the base for Radio Manchester, but the vessel was found to be in such an unseaworthy condition that this idea was pursued no further. During the summer of 1966 other events arising from negotiations to establish a second station in the south meant that Radio London's plans for a northern outlet were abandoned.

The planned se Big L Disco advert cond outlet in the south came about in April 1966 when Radio London's Managing Director, Philip Birch, opened negotiations with Radio City's Reg Calvert. He proposed a take over of the fort-based station to re-launch it as an easy listening service to rival Radio 390 and the recently announced Britain Radio, using the call sign UKGM - United Kingdom Good Music.

A deal was struck in May 1966 under which Radio London would manage the UKGM operation for Reg Calvert and take 55% of its advertising revenue, while the Radio City boss would retain ownership of his station and all its equipment. In addition both stations (Radio London and UKGM) would have a joint servicing and tendering arrangement as well as a combined advertising sales company. It was planned that the agreement would come into effect on 1st June 1966 and that UKGM would become fully operational on 1st July 1966.

Early in June 1966 two DJs from Radio London, Keith Skues and Duncan Johnson together with Office Manager Dennis Maitland, went to Shivering Sands Fort to assess the condition of Radio City's transmitter and studio equipment. At about the same time all City's DJs were invited to Radio London's headquarters in Curzon Street to be told of the plans for UKGM and offered jobs on the new station.

However, the merger plans did not go ahead quite as envisaged. It came to light that, as well as negotiating this deal with Radio London, Reg Calvert had secretly continued to have parallel negotiations with Major Oliver Smedley of Project Atlanta - the original organisation behind Radio Atlanta in 1964 which also had links with Radio Caroline from July 1964 until December 1965. Previous negotiations between these two men had resulted in September 1965 in the joint Radio Caroline/Radio City advertising sales fiasco and the delivery of an obsolete transmitter to the Shivering Sands Fort by a team from Project Atlanta.

Radio London aboard the Galaxy, August 1967

Click on picture to enlarge

Daily Express 13th January 1966

Radio London advertising promo

Radio London was credited with helping many artists achieve chart success. This was often acknowledged by the artists or their agents in trade press adverts.

Richard Hodnut Light and Bright