|
No,
nothing changed... March 2002, 38 years later - and radio lovers - the true ones - get ready to celebrate this birthday. What was the situation in 1964? Radio was completely controlled, locked into the power of governments or finance. It was impossible for those that wanted to make their mark, to get involved in the adventure. New groups or artists had to go begging. Major companies had the system sewn up and could dictate good and bad. Control reigned on the radio waves... It was possible to get round the system and to broadcast from a foreign territory and so bypass the restrictions, but that had its limits. With the fight by Radio Caroline over many years, the idea of a free and independent radio station serving its listeners, came about. But for a long time she was alone, disowned from afar, and seen as nothing but a "pirate". Bending under pressures from listeners who wanted "free" radio, the authorities tried everything to make "pirate" radio disappear, setting up "commercial" radio, all in an "organized and controlled setting "... The evolution of radio knew how to jump then, but stopped shortly after. The unimaginable arrived - a return backwards. 38 years later, this backward march returned radio to where it was in 1964. All of it without imagination, records companies control, with the support of financiers and the government. It is impossible to move without their blessing, on the airwaves as well as in the record shops. The big ate the small, free choice has been eliminated, the listener is no more than " a part of the market ". The most powerful European transmitters are always rented by those that try, over the seas and borders, to propagate their programmes, for lack of any better option. One can only note that 38 years later, nothing much has changed. Order still reigns in the sterile world of media. 38 years later, it is time for an outlaw to come along and shake up to the established order in this radiophonic state: Radio Caroline... |