In the Guardian, Twice Over: Point Blank Radio's Press Story

When a station that started life dodging Ofcom vans ends up written about in a national newspaper - and Point Blank has had that happen more than once, in The Guardian, thirteen years apart.

2008: "You may think they're a bunch of amateurs..."

Back in November 2008, Guardian writer Miranda Sawyer turned her attention to the world of pirate and underground radio for a feature titled "You may think they're a bunch of amateurs..." - a look at the stations operating outside the mainstream, run by people doing it for the music rather than the licence fee. Point Blank was part of that story.

It's a fitting title. That's exactly what pirate radio was always accused of by the people who didn't understand it - amateurs, playing at broadcasting. What the accusation missed was the discipline underneath it: DJs who knew their records better than most legal stations' playlists ever did, and an audience who could tell the difference. The piece is still cited today as one of the earliest bits of mainstream press to take that world seriously.

2013: Recognition from the Specialists

Five years on, The Guardian was back covering the same corner of the dial. Its "Mary Anne Hobbs, Gilles Peterson: radio review" from December 2013 looked at two of British radio's most respected tastemakers - Hobbs on her BBC 6 Music weekend slot, Peterson on his Saturday afternoon show - and the kind of considered, genre-hopping broadcasting they represent. It's the same lineage Point Blank sits in: specialist shows built around real knowledge of the music, rather than a playlist algorithm.

Why It Matters to Us

Neither piece was written about Point Blank as its main subject, and we're not pretending otherwise. But being folded into the same conversation as Hobbs and Peterson - and being cited as part of the story of how pirate radio earned its stripes - is exactly the kind of recognition an underground station hopes for. It's proof that the work put in on frequencies nobody meant to be broadcasting on eventually gets noticed by the people who matter.

From the Tower Block to the Newsprint

Three decades on, we're no longer broadcasting from a tower block in West London, and we've got a licence to match. But the principle is the same as it was in 1994: put underground music on air for the people who go looking for it. That work matters. Tune in live or dig through the Listen Again archive, or find a selector on our Residents page.