Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dread Broadcasting Corporation


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was no consensus. --Aarktica 09:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Dread Broadcasting Corporation

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

advertisement for non-notable pirate radio station Rapido 21:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fails WP:RS (no myspaces as sources) and WP:N as well.  NA SC AR Fan 24 (radio me!) 21:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article needs more work. DBC is definitely notable as the first ethnic pirate radio station in the UK. Myspace is not listed as a source, merely a WP:EL. There exist other sources including the BBC one included in the article. Wwwhatsup 06:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * DJ Neneh Cherry was the first to play rap music in the UK. Station founder Lepke & DJ Miss P are siblings-in-law to Bob Marley as mentioned in the Rita Marley article. Wwwhatsup 04:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep. Major groundbreaker for black music in the UK. Rotovia 07:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. Certainly sounds significant and it seems like sufficient sources are out there.  Considering that the station almost certainly doesn't exist anymore there's no justification for calling this an ad.P4k 07:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete. The idea that it was either notable or a 'groundbreaker' is nonsensical - this is why I nominated it. The station was only on for a few hours one single day a week and to a small part of North London. It wasn't even heard of at the time by most black people. Just to give you some idea of the scale, a notable national pirate, Radio Caroline, gets over a third of a million hits in Google. A less famous regional pirate from the '60s called Radio 270 that most people have long forgotten about (only operated for a year to the mainly rural Yorkshire area) gives 22,900 hits. In Google, "Dread Broadcasting Corporation" gives 697 hits, which is probably more than their ratings ever were. Granted there are mentions in books, almost all of them written in the past few years by authors who have presumably only just been made aware of the station and certainly never listened to it at the time - I seriously doubt Neneh Cherry was a DJ on it or that the station was the first to play rap music - altho' put the two rumours together and it's a really good story to tell! There is a lot of misinformation and people wanting to rewrite history; well I lived in London in the '80s... listened to pirates too, and I can assure people that it was no more than a bedroom affair, albeit one that still seems good at maintaining a certain hype. Rapido 15:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Who cares if you listened to London pirates in the 80s? Wikipedia runs on reliable sources, not personal experience.P4k 00:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I owe you an apology Rapido. The article was obviously started by someone associated with the station, and I don't know if there are that many sources out there about it, so whatever.P4k 01:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The DBC DJ line-up included Neneh Cherry, Paul Simonon, Keith Allen and Lloyd Bradley. It is true they were only on the air one day a week. DBC started in 1979 on AM with limited reach. In 1980 they moved to FM and broadcast from the tops of tower blocks, later sharing the 'Our Radio' transmitter with several other stations. Reception was good in most of central London. It's also true that, especially in it's early days, the station was snubbed by many West Indians - who felt that radio should be formal, like the BBC - but it was very popular with the punks and brought streetwise reggae to a larger audience, eventually leading to it's inclusion on Capital Radio etc., and Miss P getting a job with the BBC. In 1983, facing repeated busts they packed it in, with the genre having been established as viable public programming, and a new wave of South London pirates taking their place. Another aspect of DBC's influence was their championing of erstwhile NY producers such as Bullwackie and playing the new Studio One disco mixes also out of NY. The DBC style was distinct enough that Trojan Records in the UK in 2004 released a compilation based on the station's playlist. Wwwhatsup 01:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep - Meets WP:N. Plenty of reliable source material from Google books by themselves. Also, there is info going back to at least 1983: (1) Men & Matters: London pirates. Financial Times. March 3, 1983. (2) U.S. Pirates prosper on the British Airways. New York Times. September 20, 1984. (3) British Government Goes After Pirate Radio An AP Extra. Associated Press. September 5, 1985. (4) Dread Broadcasting Corp; (5) Black to the future. --  Jreferee    t / c  08:13, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.