Talk:Radio Atlanta

I am in the process of creating this article which was a mere redirect to Radio Caroline which in turn had a loop that redirected back to itself with nothing worth speaking of about Radio Atlanta. Fragilethreads 17:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Good start but needs more details on frequencies, formats, etc

Lee M 00:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The article at Radio Nord contained some information regarding the ship, Bon Jour/Mi Amigo. Since it had no relevance to the Radio Nord story, I removed it to here. However, the information it contains is different and in places, downright stupid, due to inaccurate dates

I place it here, unadulterated, so someone can establish which version is correct. --Keith 14:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Further history of the ship
On Friday September 14, 1962 she sailed away for Spain, going to the new anchorage off the coast of South-Eastern England in the North Sea where she remained until Thursday January 10, 1963. This move was in preparation for an immediate lease to Project Atlanta, Ltd., a British company formed to manage the sales and programming of a new station to be called Radio Atlanta, a name inspired by Gordon McLendon who began his broadcasting career in Atlanta, Texas.

Project Atlanta Ltd., was owned by investors with political, banking, publishing and music industry interests and it was managed in London, England by Australian Allan Crawford Between 1955 and 1959, Crawford had been the British agent for U.S. Southern Music publishers. By the early 1960s Crawford had formed Merit Music and was producing cover versions of popular music on his record labels. His idea had been to lease the former Radio Nord from Gordon McLendon in order to promote his own record business in Britain. Others who associated with Crawford attempted similar projects with CNBC; GBLN and GBOK. While CNBC did make it on the air with limited test broadcasts aimed at Britain, it is rumored that GBLN also made some tests from the Mi Amigo anchored off Britain since McLendon's agent had tried to bring all of the interested parties together.

When another Scandinavian offshore radio station ran afoul of the authorities and produced news articles that alarmed the original investors behind Project Atlanta, Limited, talks with the McLendon agents fell through and the ship moved off the British coast to the coast of Ostend, Belgium. On Saturday January 19, 1963 the Mi Amigo was reported to have made a port call at Flushing and then another at Brest to repair her steering gear and left for Galveston, Texas on Saturday January 26, 1964

The Mi Amigo arrived in Galveston on March 4 where the engineers at the McLendon station KILT in Houston began removing her broadcasting equipment. The ship remained in port for most of the remainder of the year during which time Ronan O'Rahilly who had also heard of Crawford's plans and he went to Texas to inspect the Mi Amigo. O'Rahilly convinced Crawford that he could find new investors in Project Atlanta Ltd., and to this end Crawford had shared with O'Rahilly the business plan drawn up and used by the McLendon legal team for Radio Nord. O'Rahilly then took his knowledge to an associate who introduced him to Jocelyn Stevens who represented the younger set of the British Establishment who then used this knowledge to create their own station offshore station called Radio Caroline.

After months of continuous negotiations Allan Crawford finally signed a contract with the Texas owners of the Mi Amigo which was listed as Rosebud Shipping of Panama. The name seems to have been derived from McLendon humor due to his movie interests and the closing words of the film Citizen Kane. Rosebud Shipping initially chartered their ship to Rajah Anstalt of Liechtenstein, which in turn leased the vessel to Atlantic Services Anstalt of Liechtenstein, which was under the control of Project Atlanta, Limited of London.

Once again the Mi Amigo crossed the Atlantic Ocean and once again suffered storm damage to her radio mast. Because her radio broadcasting equipment had been disassembled in Galveston, it was necessary for work to be undertaken to make her ready to broadcast. It was then that Crawford turned to O'Rahilly and a barter arrangement was entered into. Having discovered O'Rahilly's true intentions and knowing that Stevens would require a production studio, it was arranged for Radio Caroline to share the London studio space owned by Crawford in exchange for use of O'Rahilly's father's private shipyard in Ireland.

Radio Atlanta eventually came on the air on Tuesday May 12, 1964 and on Thursday July 2, 1964 Project Atlanta and Radio Caroline agreed to merge their sales operations, but not the ownership of their companies or their offshore stations to form the Caroline Network, with Radio Atlanta becoming Caroline South and the original Caroline station becoming Caroline North.

After Monday August 14, 1967, new ownership of the stations came in when a new British law made the previous arrangement illegal. McLendon appears to have allowed a salvage company to take possession of the Mi Amigo in March 1968. After an interval of several years the vessel was saved from the scrapyards by fans and returned to use as a radio ship under an ad hoc arrangement. The troubled and sometimes interrupted history of the Mi Amigo continued as a radio ship until she finally sank off the British coast during a North Sea storm on Thursday March 20, 1980.