The First Pirate Radio
Radio Mercur was probably the first commercial offshore radio station in the world and gave inspiration to a whole number of offshore radios or pirate radios in Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium and United Kingdom during the 1960s. The Danish press soon began to use the expression "pirate radio" on Radio Mercur, and a number of cartoons in newspapers and magazines pictured the radio station with pirate symbols.
Radio Mercur used the fact that radio transmitting in international water was only regulated by international agreements; these didn't take into account the possibility to transmit regularly from an anchored ship. The inspiration for the radio station came from Radio Luxembourg and the American Voice of America, which broadcasted from a military vessel, the USCGC Courier, in the Mediterranean.
The success of Radio Mercur directly inspired other groups of radio enthusiasts to begin their own ship-based stations, in The Netherlands the stations Radio Veronica and the artificial island based Radio Northsea, and in Sweden Skaanes Radio Mercur (later named Radio Syd) - in the beginning transmitting from the same ship as the Danish station - and Radio Nord close to Stockholm.
Read more about this topic: Radio Mercur
Famous quotes containing the words the first, pirate and/or radio:
“I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“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)