Offshore radio

The claimed first wireless broadcast of music and speech for the purpose of entertainment was transmitted from a Royal Navy craft, HMS Andromeda, in 1907.

The broadcast was organized by a Lieutenant Quentin Crauford using the callsign QFP while the ship was anchored off Chatham in the Thames Estuary, England.

By the late 1920s, the "UK government concluded that radio was such a powerful means of mass communication that it would have to be in state control", and gave the publicly funded BBC a monopoly on broadcasting.

The earliest attempt to establish an offshore broadcaster in England occurred in 1928, when Associated Newspapers (owners of the Daily Mail) acquired the yacht Ceto and installed radio equipment.

Unauthorized offshore broadcasting stations operating from ships or fixed platforms in the coastal waters of the North Sea first appeared in 1958.

The operators of the ship actually broadcast popular music and advertisements, fooling the Panamanian government and eventually being shut down at the request of the U.S. Department of State.

The MV Mi Amigo , one of the most infamous radio ships.
The MV Ross Revenge , had the tallest mast of any radio ship. The mast later collapsed in 1987.