The Yank on the billboard-How not to break into radio

One Date Night recently at the Mojo house we decided to rent Pirate Radio.  That movie had been in our list to see because I was familiar with the story and have a relationship to its history.  Before I was a stay at home dad I traveled around a bit.  During one of those traveling stints I was working at The Peacock in Nottingham, England. 

One night when I was working these business men came over from the BBC, which was located across the street.  After a bit of chatting to them I said that I did some radio and was traveling.  They mentioned that a friend of theirs was in Italy running a radio station and might need some help.

I sent him a copy of my air check, we exchanged a couple phone calls and I agreed to head over to Italy to work at STAR 108 for food and lodging. 

The station was located in Seborga, Italy.  Seborga is one of the world’s smallest municipalities,  in the mountains near the border of France and Italy.  Seborga is on the top of a mountain and has about 350 people living in the village with one shop, a restaurant and fabulous views all around you.  That area is one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen, really amazingly beautiful.

The radio station was tiny, just one room to broadcast from and a smaller production studio. Once I arrived I learned that they initially wanted me to broadcast from a bulletin board for a month as a promotion stunt.  They had heard about wacky American DJs doing that and figured that it would work in the Italian mountains too.  Thankfully they changed their minds about that and let me broadcast from the main studio. 

The staff consisted of Mark Dezanni, Alex Wilkinson and Alan West.  Mark had been living in Seborga doing radio for a while and Alex had been there for a bit too.  Alan had been at the station for a while, but didn’t stay too long once I had arrived.  At the time, Alan West was a bit of a radio legend as he had worked on some of the pirate radio ships in the 60s and 70s.

This is where I learned all about the world of pirate radio.  When I heard these stories in the early 90s they blew me away and I was instantly jealous of the fun times that they must have had.  The only ship still broadcasting ‘pirate radio’ is Radio Caroline, I listen to it occasionally and its’ playlist is similar to what we played at STAR 108.  It’s truly a mix of old and new music, bouncing between formats, similar to what you’d hear in a European resort setting. 

Unfortunately my time in Seborga at STAR 108 only lasted two and a half months, not even enough time to enjoy the summer on the Italian Riviera.   The station was having some financial issues and my traveling stash was shrinking so I had to go elsewhere.  Alan went back to the UK and did some things that he shouldn’t have online and can’t look at a computer until the year 2016.  I’m not sure what Mark is doing and Alec worked for a bit in television and does PR work in the UK. 

I do wish American radio were a bit more like Radio Caroline or STAR 108 and not so adherent to genres or formats.  The ‘dave’ or ‘jack’ stations that you hear are a good start, but their music is always the same genre.  Ironically, the oldies radio stations in the US have a deeper playlist, if it’s a large, different variety that you’re looking for in terrestrial radio.  Today’s music fans have wider playlists than the radio programmers are accommodating, which is certainly one reason why internet radio is taking off in huge numbers. 

The movie Pirate Radio was enjoyable, lightweight fluff and loosely based on facts about pirate radio. There were pirate radio ships, but the storyline that the movie follows is all fiction.   If you like Notting Hill then it’ll be your cup of tea, literally as the humor is British.