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Ronan O'Rahilly, rebel rock broadcaster, dies at 79
Obituaries
Ronan O’Rahilly, rebel rock broadcaster, dies at 79
By Phil Davison
April 24, 2020 at 6:24 p.m. EDT
In 1964, the young and rebellious Irish go-getter entrepreneur Ronan O’Rahilly, along with his corps of DJs, started beaming Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones — and other artists spurned as “a menace” by the staid BBC radio monopoly of the time — from a converted 700-ton ferry off the east coast of England, just outside British territorial waters.
Unlicensed and uncensored, Mr. O’Rahilly’s Radio Caroline was the nation’s first pirate radio station and became the heartbeat of British youths. It broadcast into the wee hours, attracting hundreds of thousands of teenage postwar boom babies who listened in from a transistor radio tucked under their pillow while their parents were listening — perhaps on their downstairs box — to Frank Sinatra and Perry Como on the BBC.
Mr. O’Rahilly, who died April 20 at 79 in his native Ireland, drew an audience of 25 million in his prime and was credited with helping spark the Swinging Sixties and eventually forcing the BBC to “get with it” by setting up its own pop music channels.
Musicians, including Pete Townshend of the Who, have said Mr. O’Rahilly not only helped them break through but also was influential in reshaping Western European musical culture during the edgy days of the Cold War. The Times of London called the Irishman “the godfather of the pirate radio stations which revolutionized British broadcasting in the 1960s.”
Mr. O’Rahilly had named his rusty ship the MV Caroline after President John F. Kennedy’s young daughter. He became a lifelong fan and amateur historian of Kennedy, America’s first Catholic president, and kept a gigantic bust of the leader in his office on the boat and later in his onshore headquarters.
{snip}
Ronan O’Rahilly, rebel rock broadcaster, dies at 79
By Phil Davison
April 24, 2020 at 6:24 p.m. EDT
In 1964, the young and rebellious Irish go-getter entrepreneur Ronan O’Rahilly, along with his corps of DJs, started beaming Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones — and other artists spurned as “a menace” by the staid BBC radio monopoly of the time — from a converted 700-ton ferry off the east coast of England, just outside British territorial waters.
Unlicensed and uncensored, Mr. O’Rahilly’s Radio Caroline was the nation’s first pirate radio station and became the heartbeat of British youths. It broadcast into the wee hours, attracting hundreds of thousands of teenage postwar boom babies who listened in from a transistor radio tucked under their pillow while their parents were listening — perhaps on their downstairs box — to Frank Sinatra and Perry Como on the BBC.
Mr. O’Rahilly, who died April 20 at 79 in his native Ireland, drew an audience of 25 million in his prime and was credited with helping spark the Swinging Sixties and eventually forcing the BBC to “get with it” by setting up its own pop music channels.
Musicians, including Pete Townshend of the Who, have said Mr. O’Rahilly not only helped them break through but also was influential in reshaping Western European musical culture during the edgy days of the Cold War. The Times of London called the Irishman “the godfather of the pirate radio stations which revolutionized British broadcasting in the 1960s.”
Mr. O’Rahilly had named his rusty ship the MV Caroline after President John F. Kennedy’s young daughter. He became a lifelong fan and amateur historian of Kennedy, America’s first Catholic president, and kept a gigantic bust of the leader in his office on the boat and later in his onshore headquarters.
{snip}
Radio Caroline - Pirate Radio Ships 1965
107,893 views•Apr 16, 2015
decibelfm
2.25K subscribers
Not available in your country? Try https://vimeo.com/125143389
52 Years ago a British Pathé film crew left Felixstowe harbour on the tender 'Offshore 1' for a visit to Radio Caroline's MV Mi Amigo. The footage of their 2 day film shoot was heavily edited and ended up as a 3 minute item, used as part of a short Pathé cinema special about 'Water'.
The Pathé archive recently published this 'Water-clip' on YouTube where many of you may have seen it. The picture quality and lighting of the professional cameraman were pristine, since it was shot on 35mm cinema film (without sound, just commentary and stock music added).
{snip}
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly. Unlicensed by any government for most of its early life, it was a pirate radio station that never became illegal as such due to operating outside any national jurisdiction, although after the Marine Offences Act (1967) it became illegal for a British subject to associate with it.
The Radio Caroline name was used to broadcast from international waters, using five different ships with three different owners, from 1964 to 1990, and via satellite from 1998 to 2013. Since 19 August 2000, Radio Caroline has also broadcast 24 hours a day via the internet and by the occasional restricted service licence. Currently they also broadcast on DAB radio in certain areas of the UK: these services are part of the Ofcom small-scale DAB+ trials. Caroline can be heard on DAB+ in Aldershot, Birmingham, Cambridge, Brighton, Glasgow, Norwich, London, Portsmouth, Poulton-le-Fylde and Woking.
In May 2017 Ofcom awarded the station an AM community licence to broadcast to Suffolk and north Essex;[3] full-time AM (medium wave) broadcasting, via a previously redundant BBC World Service transmitter mast at Orford Ness, commenced on 22 December 2017.
Radio Caroline broadcasts music from the 1960s to contemporary, with an emphasis on album-oriented rock (AOR) and "new" music from "carefully selected albums". On 1 January 2016, a second channel was launched called Caroline Flashback, playing pop music from the late 1950s to the early 1980s.
{snip}
Origins
The MV Mi Amigo, c. 1974, the home of Radio Caroline South from 1964 to 1967
Radio Caroline was begun by Irish musician manager and businessman Ronan O'Rahilly, after he failed to obtain airplay on Radio Luxembourg for Georgie Fame's records because the station was committed to sponsored programmes promoting major record labels: EMI, Decca, Pye and Philips.
{snip}
Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly. Unlicensed by any government for most of its early life, it was a pirate radio station that never became illegal as such due to operating outside any national jurisdiction, although after the Marine Offences Act (1967) it became illegal for a British subject to associate with it.
The Radio Caroline name was used to broadcast from international waters, using five different ships with three different owners, from 1964 to 1990, and via satellite from 1998 to 2013. Since 19 August 2000, Radio Caroline has also broadcast 24 hours a day via the internet and by the occasional restricted service licence. Currently they also broadcast on DAB radio in certain areas of the UK: these services are part of the Ofcom small-scale DAB+ trials. Caroline can be heard on DAB+ in Aldershot, Birmingham, Cambridge, Brighton, Glasgow, Norwich, London, Portsmouth, Poulton-le-Fylde and Woking.
In May 2017 Ofcom awarded the station an AM community licence to broadcast to Suffolk and north Essex;[3] full-time AM (medium wave) broadcasting, via a previously redundant BBC World Service transmitter mast at Orford Ness, commenced on 22 December 2017.
Radio Caroline broadcasts music from the 1960s to contemporary, with an emphasis on album-oriented rock (AOR) and "new" music from "carefully selected albums". On 1 January 2016, a second channel was launched called Caroline Flashback, playing pop music from the late 1950s to the early 1980s.
{snip}
Origins
The MV Mi Amigo, c. 1974, the home of Radio Caroline South from 1964 to 1967
Radio Caroline was begun by Irish musician manager and businessman Ronan O'Rahilly, after he failed to obtain airplay on Radio Luxembourg for Georgie Fame's records because the station was committed to sponsored programmes promoting major record labels: EMI, Decca, Pye and Philips.
{snip}
The Fortunes ~ Caroline (1964)
248,212 views•Jul 3, 2011
TheOldrecordclub
184K subscribers
Lots of nice memories for me this one as i use to remember my late parents always listening to the broadcasts from the pirate radio station "radio Caroline" who use to broadcast pop music from their ship, to the shores of England while out there off the Essex coast, but in international waters, and this song was one of the radio's theme tunes and all this was before we had radio 1 here in this country. "HAPPY DAYS"
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
