Ruling issued over radio station’s King Charles death announcement
The ruling was given by UK’s media regulator Ofcom months after the radio station falsely declared King Charles’ death
Ofcom, UK telecoms regulator, has ruled that Radio Caroline breached broadcasting regulations after it aired an announcement declaring the death of King Charles III.
Radio Caroline, which is based in Essex, said it triggered its pre-prepared "Death of a Monarch" emergency protocol due to a studio computer error.
The radio station interrupted normal programming and broadcast an announcement that King Charles had died.
The station then played "God Save the King" and went off air (silent) for around 15–16 minutes.
The false announcement of the monarch’s death was transmitted during The Barry Marsh Show.
"Due to a computer error at our main studio, the Death of a Monarch procedure... was accidentally activated... mistakenly announcing that HRH the King had passed away. We apologise to the King and to our listeners for any distress caused," said the radio station after the announcement was mistakenly made.
According to GB News, the media regulator found the station in violation of two key rules governing news accuracy and the timely correction of errors.
According to Ofcom's ruling, the presenter stopped the files upon realising what had happened but "panicked and left the premises."
It was not until approximately half an hour after the false announcements first went out that an apology was aired.
Ofcom confirmed it received two complaints regarding the broadcast and determined that Radio Caroline had violated rule 5.1, which mandates accurate and impartial news reporting, as well as rule 5.2, which requires swift on-air acknowledgement and correction of errors.
The regulator described the incident as "a very significant inaccuracy about an issue of particular public importance."
Ofcom noted that although the station's licensee had been monitoring output at the time and an engineer was already aware of the problem, reinstating the scheduled programme took considerable time.
This delay was compounded by the presenter streaming the show remotely.
Radio Caroline stated that the pre-prepared files came with "a set of strict instructions to presenters and managers" governing their use, but that the staff member responsible had played them out of curiosity.
