Pirating the Pirates

"No one is going to cock a snook at British law. The pirates are going to be dealt with."

So, with all the haughty aplomb of a modern-day Captain Bligh, decreed Britain's Postmaster General Edward Short. The pirates in this case were the dozen or so illegal radio stations that for the past three years have been beaming pop music into the British Isles from makeshift studios on rusty ferries, minesweepers, freighters and abandoned World War II antiaircraft towers just outside the three-mile limit. True to his word, Short last month helped push a piece of legislation through Parliament which, by making it a criminal offense to supply advertising, food or ships to the outlaw stations, successfully torpedoed the pirate fleet. A bloody catastrophe, wailed many of the 20 million listeners who each week tuned in to hear the latest in the big beat scene. Where can they turn now? To the square, hoary old British Broadcasting Company.

Last week the BBC introduced a group of rock jockeys who will run a new pop music program, Radio One. The network explained that it had pirated 15, or more than half of their new staffers, from the pirate stations.

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