Pirate Radio in The United Kingdom - 1990s

1990s

By 1989, there were about six hundred pirate radio stations in the UK, with over 60 in London. In the 1990s, a new wave of rave pirate radio stations emerged, such as Radio Sunrise, Radio Centre Force and Radio Fantasy. In the early 1990s, pirate radio briefly declined in response to tougher penalties, an intensified crackdown by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the leading dance pirate radio station Kiss FM responding to the Government's offer of amnesty for pirate stations that closed down voluntarily and applied for an official licence. But Kiss FM failed to satisfy the rising rave audience and pirate radio resurged in 1992 and 1993. The new pirate radio stations abandoned the mainstream pop radio format and moved to a "raves on the air" format with strong emphasis on audience participation, enabled by the spread of mobile phones. Pirate radio stations would frequently lose transmitters worth several hundred pounds due to DTI raids, redirecting to backup transmitters on the roof of another building to maintain broadcast continuity. Pirate radio stations would gain revenue from advertising raves and specialist record shops, as well as DJs who paid a fee for playing.

The Broadcasting Act 1990 led to the brief decline of UK pirate radio by encouraging diversity in radio and opening up the development of commercial radio. Many pirate radio stations such as the London based dance music station Kiss FM applied for licences to the new Radio Authority and went legitimate. However, the number of unlicensed broadcasts has since increased, partly because many non-licensed broadcasters believed that the 1990 Act had actually undermined community-based stations and small scale radio entrepreneurs. Of the pirate radio stations that gained a licence in the 1990s, such as Kiss FM, FTP in Bristol, WNK Radio in Haringey and KFM Radio in Stockport, only a few, such as Sunrise Radio in London, remained in the hands of the original owners. Most have become significantly more mainstream and target a broad audience as a result of commercial pressures to achieve greater audience numbers and a particular audience type sought by advertisers.