When
Radio Atlanta took to the airwaves in the second week of May 1964,
Caroline, the first of Britain’s pop privateers, was already
claiming seven million listeners. Anchored just fourteen miles from
each other, both stations were aiming at the same audience. Talks
ensued between Project Atlanta and Ronan’s Planet Productions and
on July 2nd the merger between the two stations was announced. At 8 pm on the same day Radio Atlanta closed down for the very last time. In
their joint statement Ronan O’Rahilly and Alan Crawford said: "The
decision to merge was taken due to the enormous interest from the
public and advertisers in parts of England outside our original
transmission area. The merger means that we will now cover the most
populated areas of Great-Britain and will meet the demands of
advertisers in the Midlands & North and from existing advertisers
who are already taking time on the two stations”.
The
next day the original Caroline ship set sail westward towards The Channel, hugging the coast and broadcasting as she went. On board the dj’s
tried to predict at what time the ship would be passing important
coastal towns. I remember Tom Lodge announcing “This is Radio
Caroline steaming West along the South coast”. I managed to pick up
the transmission until the ship passed Penzance, just before Land’s
End. It took some four days for Caroline to reach her new anchorage off the
Isle of Man in Ramsey Bay. Radio Caroline North continued broadcasting on 197m
and Radio Caroline South on 201m, both advertising their spot on the
dial as ‘one nine nine’, because it rhymed so well with Caroline.
With digital frequency read-outs still far in the future hardly
anyone noticed -or cared about- this white lie for euphony’s sake. In Zeebrugge, where I lived, I could receive both Carolines. Caroline South obviously offering by far the strongest signal on the Belgian coast.
More of AJ's radio- and other anecdotes.
More of AJ's radio- and other anecdotes.
