“King Charles is dead” (for half an hour), the radio gets the news wrong and the speaker runs away: the story of a disaster

Ofcom said it had received two complaints about the broadcast and had found breaches of standard 5.1, which requires news to be reported accurately and impartially, and standard 5.2: errors in the reporting of news must be highlighted and corrected live in a timely manner. “We considered this to be a very significant error on a matter of particular public importance. Radio Caroline did not broadcast an apology or clarification until approximately 30 minutes after the erroneous announcements were first aired,” the authority’s verdict.

The chain of errors

How can such an error occur? “The license holder was monitoring the broadcast at the time of the incident, a technician was already aware of the problem but it took some time to understand what had happened and restore the scheduled programme. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the presenter was streaming the program remotely.” In short, a disaster. Is everything clear? No, one detail is missing.

It’s all the fault of the curious technician…

Also on file is a further explanation from the broadcaster. The files containing pre-recorded obituaries were accompanied by “a set of strict instructions for presenters and managers”. Clear orders, in short, to be implemented only in very specific circumstances. A member of staff, however, became curious and clicked, opening Pandora’s box. Radio Caroline said it was “taking this matter very seriously” and had acted “as soon as possible”. The broadcaster added that the staff member who played the files had been reprimanded and “apologised”. To avoid other similar incidents, the files were deleted from the studio’s desktop computer.