Radio 270 - Origins

Origins

In 1965 a group of Yorkshire businessmen formed a consortium to establish an offshore radio station to broadcast to the North East coast from a location off Scarborough. 28 year old Don Robinson, an entertainments promoter, began the venture with Bill Pashby (a fishing boat skipper), Roland Hill (a poultry farmer) and Leonard Dale (owner of the Dale Electrics business at Gristhorpe). These recruited Wilf Proudfoot, owner of a chain of supermarkets and a former Conservative MP. The venture was incorporated within a public company named Ellambar Investments Ltd.

In late 1965, Proudfoot addressed a public meeting at a Scarborough hotel in which he invited the public to subscribe for shares in the business. He indicated that the venture was a high risk one and that nobody should expect a commercial return on the money they put in. Around sixty people did subscribe with the largest single shareholding being held by Proudfoot himself. Leonard Dale became Chairman of the company while Proudfoot became its managing director.

Don Robinson and Bill Pashby both initially occupied prominent roles in what soon became known as Radio 270. Robinson prepared the first programme plan for the station which adopted a mixture of light music and lifestyle material. It was intended to provide an "up-market" offering which would compete directly with the BBC's Light Programme. Pashby was the station's first "Maritime Director" and it was he that picked out a suitable vessel for use as a broadcasting platform and supervised its fitting out.

However, the business side of the operation fell increasingly under the control of Wilf Proudfoot. The station's management was run from an office in the Scalby Road, Scarborough headquarters of the Proudfoot supermarket business. The station's office manager was Maggie Lucas, a long standing associate of Proudfoot who had acted as his secretary when he had been the Member of Parliament for Cleveland from 1959 to 1964. Proudfoot became uncomfortable with the planned programming and he engaged the services of Noel Miller as Programme Director. Miller had previous experience of commercial radio in Australia and he adopted a simple style of programming based on a Top 40 format.

A planned opening date of 1 April 1966 had to be abandoned when the station's vessel, Ocean 7, shed its radio mast. However, the station finally opened in June, broadcasting on 269 metres in the medium wave. This wavelength was used by some existing radio stations in southern and eastern Europe but these were too far away for Radio 270 to cause them any trouble. The initial results were highly successful. The station's broadcasts could be received over a large tract of eastern England from Newcastle in the north to Nottingham in the south, containing as many as 15 million people. It even gained some listeners in the Netherlands. Its continuous pop music format attracted a regular audience which various estimates placed between 1.5 and 4 millions.

The station charged a basic £30 for a 30 second advertising spot. It was very successful in attracting advertising for local businesses and events in the North Yorkshire area. Even Scarborough Borough Council paid for twelve 15 second adverts to announce events in the town's Festival of Norway. However, big-ticket advertising for national businesses proved elusive. The largest single paying advertiser was the Worldwide Church of God which purchased a nightly 30 minute slot for a fee of around £300 per week. This covered most of Radio 270's payroll. The nightly "god slot" contained the preaching of evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong.

The second largest advertiser was the Proudfoot supermarket business. This created a complex financial situation in which there were two-way transfer charges between Radio 270 and Proudfoot for reciprocal services rendered.