THE OFFSHORE CHUNK

RADIO ENGLAND

RADIO ENGLAND

227 metres medium wave (am)

On board the Olga Patricia

On air:   May 1966 -  November 4th 1966 (replaced by Dutch station Radio Dolfin)

Here we had a radio station well in advance of its time. Swinging Radio England, which had a battery of very professional and new jingles.  It played them out enthusiastically during its test transmissions.  I even remember the ITN news running an item on their tests and they showed some superb shots of the studios, ship and the jingles played at length.  On the nearby ships and forts jealous and enterprising deejays and engineers were busy recording them and editing out the Radio England name and inserting their own.

The station had deejays who were mainly American.  It was the Laser 558 format but did not take off very well in the sixties.  Johnnie Walker, Brian Tylney, Roger Scott and John Ross Barnard were among the only English announcers on this ship.

They had a weekend of golden oldies which made the station rather special sounding.

The American deejays to my mind were superb.  Boom Boom Brannigan, Ron Quinn, Chuck Blair, Paul Dean and others all operated under the name of "Boss Jocks".   They used name jingles for presenters from an existing pack, and the announcers had to take the names from the Jingles.

The jingle package were from PAMs in America and had slogans like "Swinging Radio England" "You'll get a positive charge - here on Swinging Radio England" "Remember this Golden Oldie on ......"  "Boss Jocks play more music on................"

The sister station on the ship was Britain Radio.

They did not get as many listeners as some of the stations,  the British public were not use to the lively young US style of presentation.  I remember Tony Windsor from Radio London saying that people told him to keep an eye on this new competitior as it could easily win listeners from Big L on 266.  Tony said that when he heard from their programme controller that the djs were to be called "boss-jocks" he laughed and said that the UK public would never buy that.

The station launched Johnnie Walker and Roger Day on broadcasting careers. Johnnie took his jingle "He's in........... he's on.... Johnnie Walker" with him to other stations and now uses it on his Radio 2 drive time show.

Partly responsible for the downfall of this station was the massive launch party thrown at the Hilton Hotel, which it is reported part never got paid for!

Copyright Wireless Waffle Website Picture courtesy of Offshore Radio Site