For the French station, see RTL (French radio).
Radio Luxembourg was a commercial radio station that transmitted from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to the British Isles between 1933 and 1992. This station was part of the European broadcasting conglomerate RTL Group. History
Operated by the Luxembourg Broadcasting Company, the English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began broadcasting in 1933 as a commercial radio station whose airwaves were directed towards Ireland and Great Britain; this medium was a major precursor of pirate radios, and in general of modern commercial radio in the UK. On the other hand, for various companies it was an effective way of advertising their products, circumventing British legislation, which until 1973 gave the BBC the broadcasting monopoly in the territory of the United Kingdom and banned all forms of advertising in the domestic radio spectrum. In its day Radio Luxembourg boasted the most powerful privately owned transmitter in the world: 1300 Kw of medium wave broadcasting, towards the end of the 1930s.
On September 21, 1939, the Luxembourg government closed the station to protect the country's neutrality during World War II. The transmitter and its transmitters were captured by German invading forces in 1940, and were used to carry out pro-Nazi English-to-British propaganda transmissions by William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") and others. When Allied forces took over Luxembourg in September 1944, control of the station was transferred to the United States Army and used for black propaganda purposes for the remainder of the war.
After the conflagration, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, the station enjoyed a large audience in the UK and Ireland with its popular entertainment programs. The last broadcast took place on 30 December 1992. The parent company of Radio Luxembourg, RTL Group, continued its activities in the UK until July 2010 as owners of Channel 5 television.
wiki
