Radio Enoch was a pirate radio station in the United Kingdom, operating out of the West Midlands, homeland of its namesake, Enoch Powell. Radio Enoch professed a socially right-wing viewpoint, and also extolled the virtues of Capitalism and Privatisation. The manager claimed it operated as an unlicensed station because its views on race and immigration would prevent it from being able to broadcast in what it deemed a "socialist" media. The station also expressed support for the white minority rule governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. The station was launched in 1978, broadcasting hour-long shows monthly.
The group behind Radio Enoch called themselves "People Against Marxism".
The General Post Office had some trouble in shutting down Radio Enoch although it knew about 200 people were involved with the station. The broadcasts were transmitted from a variety of sites across the United Kingdom: this meant that the authorities were always two steps behind. Transmitting equipment was put into storage between broadcasts.
The rise of Thatcherism and a more conservative political climate signalled the end of Radio Enoch's usefulness. Its purpose in returning a Tory government complete, Radio Enoch stopped broadcasting in June 1980, vowing to return if a socialist government returned, although it never did after the Labour party victory of 1997.
Famous quotes containing the words radio and/or enoch:
“There was a girl who was running the traffic desk, and there was a woman who was on the overnight for radio as a producer, and my desk assistant was a woman. So when the world came to an end, we took over.”
—Marya McLaughlin, U.S. television newswoman. As quoted in Women in Television News, ch. 3, by Judith S. Gelfman (1976)
“It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.... As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.””
—J. Enoch Powell (b. 1912)