IS THE CAROLINE MANAGEMENT STILL RELIABLE
In January 2004 the Horizon arrived, a ‘magazine’ which comes in on a regular base into the post-box of the editor of this book and that of other Caroline lovers. Thanks John and Jenny. That time Hans Knot was very surprised to see a letter from the upper manager Peter Moore. Caroline’s ‘manager’ started his letter with ‘I am ashamed that often when I put pen to paper, is to beg yet another favour from Caroline Supporters’. He, as manager of the Caroline organisation, wants to use it to get the name ‘Caroline’ on the Sky Electronic Program Guide. In this way he hopes to get probably millions of listeners so advertisers can see that it’s useful to buy airtime on the station. Hans Knot thinks that the term ‘free radio’ is a thing of the past if Peter Moore starts openly asking for money to the listener.
Unlucky for the Caroline organisation, there’s no sales office for the station yet. In the eighties they had at one stage a company in America who did partly the work for them. A real office with at least one sales man at the desk from 9 am up till 5 pm is the only way to get this station way back where it once was. And that was on the top. I can’t see this happening the time
being. No office but pledging, or begging the listener for money. Even those who only tune in to the station versus internet got this letter. Radio Caroline, as it now is, has nothing to do with the free radio, which Ronan and his managers and program directors brought us and the deejays in the past. We, the listener, could listen without paying any money and the deejays could play as much what they wanted. Now, 2004, it has totally changed: the organiser behind Radio Caroline wants the listener to pay money. I know from a few very good sources – people I know for many years and who are very trustful - that they tried to get some money into the Caroline organisation during the past year. One organisation tried to get CD’s from new bands played on the station, whereby the bands would pay a little amount of money – if the songs would be played on regular time.
Peter Moore – yes the organiser for the station – told to the person, Rob Olthof of FMC, that ‘it’s too much work to organise it’. So no plugs for new bands and also no money for Radio Caroline. I know that it’s true as I sat next to both persons when they were talking for the third time in a row on the possibilities to gain more money for the Caroline organisation and to get new bands a possibility for airplay on the station.
Where are the days that 120 different companies could be heard with their products on Radio Caroline within one week? No, don’t say we’re not in the sixties. If a good team is arranging a good rate card (the last one I’ve seen from the Caroline organisation was in 1982 when the proposed MV Imagine would come on the air) the station finally would be making money again, so it could be providing the programs as a free radio station. Asking the listeners for money would be ending by then in a healthy way. Another way of making money is selling airtime. I know that there are a couple of very fanatic supporters in Germany who want to pay a regular amount of Euro’s to a bank account in Germany. This money is transferred three times a year to Caroline account in Highgate, which makes around 1000 Pounds a year for the organisation. And you know what? The station’s manager thinks this is not so
much! Well I can tell you that in my archive is a letter from early 1992 to the Foundation for Media Communication (FMC), written by Peter Moore, in which he begged and begged for 300 Pounds. In those days some of the products of the Foundation were Caroline related – like the Caroline ‘The Legend Lives On’ CD. I was and still am advisor to the board of FMC and as the producer of this mentioned cd I advised that all the money earned from this project could go either to the Caroline organisation or to Peter Chicago. So of course FMC (SMC in Holland) also paid the 300 Pounds Moore asked for in 1992.
With this money a big Van could be rented in London and Mike Dundee and some other guys went to Holland to pick up all the equipment and records from the storehouse of Dutch OCD in Bleiswijk Holland. This was the equipment which was raided in August 1989 by the Dutch authorities and taken to Holland with the MV Volans after an illegal radio on the radio stations in international waters. So at that stage 300 Pounds was good money. I must say that FMC paid the money with all the love to get the Caroline belongings back from Holland to Dover harbour, where the Caroline vessel was at that moment. Now, in 2004, Peter Moore isn’t happy with 1000
Pounds. I also know of the fact that some people – who are either working to get the promotional sales of the radio station on a higher lever or who are making radio programs now and then (free of charge) – want to bring in more possibilities to make it a more commercial station. They’ve ideas and one of the persons brought the plan to ‘Highgate Headquarters’. And you can guess the answer: ‘sit back, wait a moment and I will come back to you’. A moment are probably many moments in Manager Moore his live. And so people are waiting and waiting.
Myself had some problems with Peter Moore with this book. The first idea was to come with a photo book on the history of Radio Caroline. During the last 40 years I gained an exclusive photo archive relating to Offshore Radio and so the first idea was to bring those photo’s which are not common to the fans and ask some former deejays to write some lines. Moore would get, in this way, some profit for the ‘organisation’. Already the day afterwards I had a bad feeling. Not only my archive would be used, Moore would have the control on the book, which mend also influence on the contents of the text. I thought it would be no good idea. I’m researching and writing since 1969 and so the idea changed into the book you’ve now on your table. Several e mails went to Highgate Headquarters from the desks of FMC and my computer. Every time we had enclosed a copy to the one who was not addressed directly. Sometimes an e mail came back and when writing once to him that I would like to have answers on my questions, he simply wrote back ‘I hate internet’.
I think it’s more a problem of not having anyone around who can get an influence on his work, as long as we can talk about this work. It’s like he feels his little baby is falling out of his hands when someone else or more people want to have some input. Of course several people concerned are in contact with each other and we have some ‘back up people’ who are reading the chapters of this book. Those are very reliable persons who have followed the Caroline organisation through the years.
I will mention some of the comments they gave on the subject ‘Is the Caroline management still reliable’? One of the back up group wrote about Peter Moore: ‘He seems afraid of change and nervous of offers of help to the point of paranoia.’ And after reading the first version of this chapter an avid Caroline listener since ages now living in the USA, Shaun Brennan wrote to me: ‘Amen to all that you've said in there. PM shoots himself in the foot again and again. Someone offers money, it's either suspicious, or too much hassle. He needs to go. Nice guy or not, he's got about as much know-how when it comes to running a functioning radio station as I have on knitting. Where there is Ronan O’Rahilly in all this? Surely he can't see the name of an organization he started dragged through the mud and made into a laughing stock and not come out of hiding? I can imagine what the reaction of ‘the management’ will be to this chapter! I think you know that there's a lot of us out here who agree with your thoughts on the station. So no change at all. It will be a sudden death. But again we have good memories. And that's one thing that time can't diminish. I just hate seeing Radio Caroline in this state...breaks my heart.’Another person, who’s following the station since 1972 wrote: ‘He seems to me like an arrogant guy who’s also condescending and I think he’s unreliable. I’ve heard several people offering him service and every time he refuses someone assistance; even ideas are not coming through. I think he knows always everything better than other persons and is unthankful when someone or more persons are offering him money. It seems he has in all cases an answer ready, which gives him the ability to do nothing at all on that subject or proposal. His lethargy can be comparable to the one of a certain Ronan O’Rahilly. In one way he is totally inefficient to manage a radio station like Radio Caroline. On the other hand the Caroline organisation is already under his management for 17 years. Maybe it’s so that such an anarchistic team of people can be hold together only by a person like Peter Moore. And then I mean working together with sometimes very difficult people. So it can be said that without Peter Moore the station would be already for many years a normal radio station – like so many others in the world. This would bring it into the category of ‘dull and non dynamic’, which it isn’t under Moore’s management.’
More comes from an avid listener from South London who has written the next to me: ‘Dear Hans, firstly thanks for your excellent work! Yes I agree (although I give Caroline £7.50 per month) I like so many others love the station, although not uncritically. The problem of power and control, can like so many other things in life, be taken too far. Caroline really was a great station. I now find myself listening to other stations as Radio Caroline seems Oké to listen to now and then. Not most of the time as I used to listen in the past.
Earlier this year John Knight from Caroline Sales, the company which brought a lot of money in for the Caroline organisation, not only to run the satellite programming but also to restore the Ross Revenge, decided that it was time to quit with Peter Moore. Just one reason I will mention why Knight decided to stop cooperation with Moore in this way: every time John was there when a cheque had to be signed for Moore but when John wanted a new commercial on the radio station he had to wait and wait and wait.Again my good feeling for a free Radio Caroline partly drifted away. And you’ve seen that I’m not alone. Lucky enough, as one of the people wrote in, there are so many good memories which we all can share in all the freedom we want. And finishing this chapter I want to repeat the words of the late Ronald C ‘Buster’ Pearson. In 1987, when we were both interviewed by Radio Netherlands, he told the listener: ‘I can’t see it will ever happen that Radio Caroline comes ashore and I wouldn’t want to see it. I think when it once comes on dry land it will loose all the glamour that has at the moment with the Ross Revenge or ‘Ronan’s Revenge’ as a lot of people are calling it.’ And I must admit that the Buster was for 100% right with his words.
By the way, the money this book is bringing in, so is decided by the board of the Foundation for Media Communication – the publisher of this book – will not go to the Caroline Organisation. The reason of this decision will be clear to most of you after reading this chapter. The board of FMC has decided that the money will go into the special research fund which made this publication possible and can give Hans Knot more ‘air’ for further research on the history of radio.