Found this site which has some interesting pages on the history of radio in Britain:
http://www.sterlingtimes.org/radio_introduction.htm

More general British-stuff on that site as well for anyone who's interested. In fact, I've just spent the last hour browsing instead of getting on with my work! Oh well....






[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-02-2004).]

With the over-regulation approach that was taken by the UK Government it's amazing that the music industry in the UK managed to take off at all!

It's not entirely unlike the current debates going on over electronic music distribution in someways.

At least people have a slightly more liberal view about broadcasting these days!! Although there's a seriously annoying tendency to turn every station into a bland playlisted computerised jukebox with DJs A bit like an MP3 player plugged into a transmitter with ads!

There is some merit to the funding-system used by the BBC at least it does keep it independent, perhaps one of the few benefits that came out of that peirod of insane over-regulation.

Ireland's licence-fee is getting a little fuzzier thesedays as it doesn't all go to the RTE anymore. Under intense pressure from commercial broadcasters (radio and TV), community radio stations and indpendent production companies, the government has been forced to put a small chunk of the licence fee into a "Public Service Broadcasting fund" accessible to more than just RTE.

So far it's been producing positive results as many of these smaller entities can produce high quality programming, often for broadcast on RTE, at a fraction of the cost as they're far more efficient with resources!

For sure. The fact that the BBC even tried to get Radio Luxembourg taken off the air in the 1930s has been publicized quite widely in recent years. The BBC's monopolistic views really haven't changed much over the years. Look at the way their continue to cling to the whole TV license concept.

By the way, make a point of checking the "Pirate" radio links on the site. There are some great Real Audio files of old Radio Caroline/London/Luxembourg clips and jingles!