The borough’s leading pirate radio station has been ordered to trim down its broadcasting activities and on-line content or risk government sanctions.
‘It hasn’t come as a total shock,’ said Radio Dalston’s proprietor Mr Keith Yentob, 26, ‘but of course we are sorry that we will not to be able to provide some of our most popular output in the future.’
‘The government said that our perpetual liberal bias and our dominant market share in the Greater Dalston area meant that we threatened commercial media outlets. Like London Fields Radio, for example, and the Dalston Mercury, even.’
We said we didn’t mind, but Mr Yentob kind of shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, but whatcha gonna do? We are a publicly funded broadcaster after all. I’m on benefits and we nick our electricity from the Post Office downstairs, so when John Whittingdale calls, we have to act. Simple as.’
The enforced changes to scheduling means that Sunday night’s popular Stevie J’s Grime Marathon will be replaced by ‘high quality costume drama and sufficiently distinctive children’s programming’ and a series of wildlife documentaries will replace Wednesday’s Bangin’ Bangra Retro Mash-up with DJ Ahmed.
‘We’ve also had to remove all the recipes from our website,’ said Mr Yentob, ‘although, in fairness, there was only one, and that was for Crystal Meth.’
Asked whether he was absolutely certain that the phone call he received had been from Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport John Whittingdale and not, for example, those gits at London Fields Radio, Mr Yentob said, ‘No, I’m pretty sure I recognised the voice. He used to go out with my Mum, y’know, before she gave up all the…’ and then he did a kind of whipping action and made a K-tsh! K-tsh! noise.
The Dalston Mercury 