Tony Benn, the radio pirates and the rise of pop

SIR – Your radio critic, Gillian Reynolds, refers to the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act 1967, which was designed to silence pirate radio stations off British shores, as “Tony Benn’s Act” (“The giants of radio who felt like our friends”, Review, August 26).

In fact, the bill was pushed through by Ted Short, Benn’s successor as Postmaster-general (PMG), with the key Second Reading in the Commons taking place six months after Benn had been moved to a different department.

It is true that Benn, when PMG, had made a number of hostile pronouncements about the pirate stations – and he was certainly keen on legislation to put what he called the “get-rich-quick” operators out of business.

Behind the scenes, however, he was both pragmatic and imaginative about developing radio services. His published diaries and the records in the National Archives detail his efforts to persuade his government colleagues, the music copyright bodies and the Musicians’ Union to agree to a new round-the-clock pop service. This was to be run by the Post Office (the putative station’s working title was “POP”), and funded by advertising, with the expected substantial revenues going back to the state.

The BBC would be paid handsomely for the station’s use of its studios and Benn thought the new network could provide a sustaining service for new local stations, which, he proposed, would take a mixture of public funds and advertising, and be run by organisations such as universities, rather than the BBC.

Benn’s replacement as the main broadcasting minister – at what was a critical moment in radio policy – presents one of the great “what ifs” of British broadcasting history. I think he deserves greater credit for his creativity on this issue than is usually granted to him.

Richard Rudin

Skelmersdale, Lancashire