Pirate radio update

national | miscellaneous | news report

Friday May 23, 2003 19:43

by We want our entertainment back

xoin at hotmail dot com

Did a little bit of research on the pirate radio shutdown today, calling Comreg, the Gardai etc. Here's what I found out: 11 locations were raided by Comreg and the Gardai on Tuesday and Wednesday (20th and 21st May) across Dublin. Equipment was seized in 9 of these locations. They (Comreg) wouldn’t give an estimate of the value of the equipment seized and didn’t know the number of Gardai involved. They also wouldn’t say if there was any ministerial involvement so I wasn’t able to find out if McDowell was involved in it at all. They said they worked in co-operation with the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation although a spokesman for the NBCI denied that they had any involvement in the raids or any investigation. The Garda press office also denied any knowledge of the operation. The spokesperson for ComReg said that prosecutions were pending although wouldn’t say whether these

The Broadcasting Commission said that complaints had been received from the public regarding these stations and that any complaints received were passed on to ComReg so it might be possible to get copies of these complaints (if they do actually exist) under the FOI act as well. I have some doubts about whether any complaints really were made or not but i could be wrong.

My investigations were pretty amateurish so maybe someone else will be able to get more info and get to the bottom of all this better than I can.

Yet another example of Official Ireland conspiring against young people, making sure that nobody can become involved in broadcasting unless they become a corporate whore. And of course who did they give the recent radio licence for a ‘youth oriented’ station to? A station with a proven track record of broadcasting to young people, like Phantom of Jazz FM? No, a consortium of fat, middle-aged businessmen like Ozzie Kilkenny who like nothing better than to sit by the fire and listen to the Corrs before a night out in the Shelbourne Bar.