Station operators thought they could continue if they were staffed, supplied and funded by non-British citizens, but this largely proved impractical.

CNBC ended transmissions but press reports followed that GBLN, The Voice of Slough, would transmit from a ship with sponsored programming already booked and advertised by Herbert W. Armstrong.

Some of the commercial television group members had registered broadcasting companies and were working to create offshore radio.

The first venture was "Project Atlanta" in 1963, which had ties to British political leaders, bankers, the music industry and to Gordon McLendon, who had helped Radio Nord broadcast from a ship off Sweden.

Press reports included rumours of offshore television stations and the brief success of the Dutch REM Island operation called Radio and TV Noordzee heightened the fear of the authorities that de facto unregulated broadcasting was becoming so entrenched due to its popularity that it would not be possible to stop it.

Allegations of piracy included misappropriation of World War II military installations; wavelengths allocated to others and the unauthorised playing of recorded music.

This incident strengthened the position of the Labour government of Harold Wilson, who wanted to bring the pirate stations under control, enough to see the passage of the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act on 15 August 1967.

The Isle of Man, supply base for Radio Caroline, rejected the 1967 law, but the legislation was extended to it anyway by an Order in Council, along with the other dependencies.

[6] The offshore stations fell into four groups: Although challenges began with Radio North Sea International in 1970, the British governments (both Labour, then Conservative) jammed it until it moved to a position off the Netherlands.

Further amendments to the act had resulted in Radio Caroline having to move its operations into wilder water, and the Great Storm of 1987 damaged their antenna tower, which collapsed a few weeks later.

The Dutch and British governments then raided the Radio Caroline ship and removed much of its equipment, but again it limped back onto the air until late 1990 when, with its funding running low, the final amendment to the act, instigating a 200-mile limit, came into effect.