Freebooter

"Pirates! Buccaneers!" cried Copenhagen newspapers, and the government was equally angry. For the first time, the complacently highbrow Danish State Radio was up against competition. Last week many of its 1,450,000 listeners were switching to crass dance music laced with commercials. Source of the jarring notes: a tubby freighter that flew the flag of Panama, safely at anchor twelve miles offshore, beyond Danish territorial waters.

This broadcast was the freebooting work of Copenhagen's Ib Fogh, 45, a tableware manufacturer who sees kroner in more than silver. He used an idea tried in other European countries, where free enterprisers have long livened the state-controlled air (and reaped the income of commercials). Example: French broadcasters have set up a commercial station beyond the reach of French regulation in tiny Andorra. Free Enterpriser Fogh incorporated himself in Liechtenstein as "Internationale Merkur Radio Anstalt," bought an ancient, 100-ton freighter and fixed her up with Panamanian registry, a 36-kw. transmitter, a towering g8-ft. antenna. He tapes programs in a suburban villa near Copenhagen, ferries them out to sea in his own cabin cruiser.

In vain the Danish government protested to Panama. But on the first day of scheduled operation last month, the weather did better than the government. A fierce storm toppled the big antenna into the sea. Undaunted, Fogh made repairs. He already has contracts worth $292,000 from commercial-time sales. His goal: 800,000 steady listeners and a lot more kroner. Says he happily: "We hope to break the state monopoly and eventually get permission to operate on dry land. After that, we'll build a television transmitter as well."

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