Dealing with the Pirates
BROADCASTING
By STUART HOOD
There are nine pirates in all, strategically placed, making no attempt at public service but beaming their programmes and commercials at the thickly populated areas where the wage packets are fat and an advertising spot at the end of the week can have an immediate effect in the local supermarkets an a Saturday morning. What they provide—apart from an excellent commercial service at rates which compare favourably with press advertising and are there- fore highly attractive to small firms—is a flow of 'pop' music interspersed, in some cases, with the odd bit of religious broadcasting and a news service derived partly from agency tapes, partly from monitoring other radio services. The National Opinion Poll gives one of them an estimated audience at peak times of nearly 24 million and a weekly audience of nearly 10-1 million.
It is the nature of their output which explains part of the moral indignation roused by the pirate stations. Some people feel strongly that a stream of 'pop' music is in itself reprehensible. They point, rightly, to the increase of noise in our transistorised civilisation, to the use of sound (any sound) as an aural stimulant, and to the neglect of silence. They find the beat of the groups distressingly monotonous, the lyrics—with few exceptions---banal and repetitious to the verge of illiteracy. It is no doubt a reflection of some kind on our educational system and way of life. that so many people should have a hunger for this mass-produced noise; but like it they do— not so much the teenagers, surprisingly, but housewives, commuters driving to work in the morning, commercial travellers, lorry-drivers. There seems no reason, short of some sort of aesthetic dictatorship, why they should not have it,
It is worth bearing in mind parenthetically that there is a school of thought which holds a programme like the BBC's Music Programme in equal abhorrence. To it the fact that a butcher's boy can whistle a theme from Beethoven is merely a sign that a major aesthetic and emotional experience has been reduced to the level of banality. Either way round, music is being used by broadcasters to be part of the background of life- a noise, a distraction, a' titillation of the ear.
Moral and aesthetic outrage apart, there remains the accusation of piracy which is based, first and foremost, on the fact that the pirates use radio frequencies in contravention of inter- national agreements—notably the Copenhagen Convention of 1948. It is difficult to summon up much righteous indignation on this score, for these agreements were early victims of the Cold War, one of the chief offenders being the Voice of America. The BBC itself has not been entirely blameless in its choice of frequencies for over- seas broadcasting. There have, it is true, been complaints from Belgium. Holland and Germany of interference with reception; but this is a common phenomenon in our crowded ether— witness French interference with television signals on the South Coast. More worrying is the accusation that on one occasion a lightship could not communicate with the shore because its two available frequencies were blocked by a pirate.
The second charge of piracy concerns the payment or non-payment— of copyright fees. Here two bodies are involved. There is the Performing Right Society. which deals with copy-' right on behalf of composers. and lyric-writers. The PRS has received and accepted payments" from Radio Caroline and Radio London `without prejudice'; other pirate stations have promised to follow their example. The second body is Phono- graphic Performance Limited, the agency set up' by the recording industry in this country (or most of it)ao collect copyright fees due to the recording' companies for the public performance of their
discs. It is to PPL that the BBC pays a large sum annually to buy 'needle time'—the right to play a fixed number of hours of canned music. With PPL the situation is stickier. Litigation has begun over infringement of copyright by Radio Caroline and the date of the hearing should appear very shortly in the cause list. It is another paradox that a pirate station can be sued by PPL on behalf of recording companies whose gratitude to the pirates for boosting record sales is unconcealed. Lastly, there is the accusation levelled by the Musicians' Union—a notoriously Luddite body which disapproves of the phonograph and has never recovered from the disappearance of he cinema pianist—that the pirates do not employ live musicians and are depriving them of possible livelihood. They have a case. The dilemma of the Labour government in waking up its mind to deal with the pirates stems from the chiasmus in viewing patterns—that criss-cross of interests which makes the Labour supporter tend to listen to pirate stations and view ITV while the Conservative opts for the BBC in both sound and vision. The rumour is that the Government has hit on a thoroughly pragmatic compromise. Since the BBC cannot— under the terms of its licence—provide a continuous programme of 'pop' music, a new public corporation should be set up, financed by
commercial advertising, to provide a service the pirate listeners want. The BBC would thus be relieved of the odium of commercialism and 'pop'; the pirates, at a blow, put out of business.
If the plan envisaged a body similar in function to the ITA in television, no one—not even the pirates—would quarrel with it. With the possible exception of the American-owned stations, they would willingly exchange their tossing vessels for stone frigates; it would be cheaper than staying at sea, for one thing. There could then be a system of franchises—on the lines of commercial television—with licences being applied for, wave- lengths vetted, advertising standards controlled, an independent news service set up, and the whole operation properly regulated. Radio Caroline. for example, would be willing to guarantee an annual sum in wages paid to musicians out of the economies effected by coming ashore. The obvious applicants for the franchises would be the present operators. They have been in the business, some of them, for almost three years. They have the staff and the experience. It seems logical that they should be given the chance to make honest broadcasters of themselves. If they refused, the Postmaster-General would have a strong case. As it is, he is more likely to have a doctrinaire solution. If it has virtues they will require some explaining.
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