UK RADIO STATION BREACHED RULES BY FALSELY ANNOUNCING KING CHARLES’ DEATH

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Agency Report

A UK community radio station has been found to have breached broadcasting rules after it mistakenly announced the death of King Charles III during a May broadcast, the country’s media regulator, Ofcom, said on Monday.

Radio Caroline, a former pirate station that now primarily broadcasts rock music, issued an apology in May after accidentally airing messages falsely announcing the monarch’s death.

One of the messages stated that normal programming had been suspended as a mark of respect following the purported death of King Charles III.

The station then played the national anthem, followed by about 16 minutes of silence before normal programming resumed.

According to Ofcom, the presenter apologised approximately 30 minutes after the erroneous announcements were first broadcast.

The regulator said it received two complaints about the incident and determined that the “very significant inaccuracy” and the lengthy delay in correcting the mistake amounted to breaches of two broadcasting rules.

One of the rules requires news broadcasts to be accurate and impartial, while another requires broadcasters to promptly acknowledge and correct significant errors.

Radio Caroline explained to Ofcom that the incident occurred when a staff member accessed pre-recorded audio files prepared in case of the monarch’s death while carrying out maintenance on the studio computer.

At the time, the programme was being streamed remotely, and the staff member reportedly played the files “out of curiosity”, interrupting the presenter’s remote stream and causing the recordings to be broadcast on air.

The staff member reportedly “panicked and left the premises” after realising what had happened, according to Ofcom.

Radio Caroline said the presenter would not have immediately known they were off air unless they were monitoring the station’s output through an internet feed.

The presenter, who believed the programme was still being broadcast, was not actively checking their phone and therefore did not immediately respond to calls from station personnel who had noticed the error.

The station said the staff member responsible had been reprimanded and had apologised for the incident.

Radio Caroline also confirmed that the pre-recorded death announcement files had been removed from the studio computer to prevent a recurrence.