In the early 1990s I was inspired by the movie Pump Up The Volume, which motivated me to start my own radio station at high school.
Pump Up The Volume, starring Christian Slater as pirate DJ “Hard Harry” is a moving testimony to the unique communicative power of charismatic radio personalities.
My modest endeavour was branded “Fahrenheit 451”, named after a novel by Ray Bradbury, published in 1953 (later made into a movie by François Truffaut, in 1966, with a (poor) US revival in 2018).
Fahrenheit 451 tells the dystopian story of an American society where books would have been outlawed and “firemen” would burn any that are found. I thought it was a pretty adequate name for a media promoting freedom of speech.
Funnily enough, when I was broadcasting my weekly programme on Wednesday nights at the boarding school a group of other students were unfortunately prevented from watching their beloved football matches on TV, due to the unexpected interferences caused by the radio transmitter. You can imagine how angry they were. Culture and sport are sometimes difficult to reconcile. It’s worth adding that one of these students later became one of the most popular radio presenters in Belgium 😉