A RADIO presenter "panicked and left the premises" after accidentally broadcasting an announcement that King Charles had died, a report has found.
Radio Caroline has been found to have breached Ofcom broadcasting rules over the extraordinary blunder, which saw listeners hear a pre-prepared announcement of the King's death followed by the national anthem and around 16 minutes of silence.
The media regulator revealed that after realising what had happened, the presenter stopped the broadcast before panicking and leaving the premises. The station has also said that a member of staff played the files “out of curiosity”, inadvertently sending them out to listeners.
The incident happened during The Barry Marsh Show on the Essex-based station Radio Caroline in May, after a member of staff played files which had been prepared in advance for the King's eventual death.
One of the announcements told listeners: “We have suspended our normal programmes until further notice as a mark of respect following the passing of His Majesty King Charles III.”
The announcement was followed by the national anthem before the station fell silent for around 16 minutes.
Around half an hour after the original announcement, listeners were eventually told that the King had not, in fact, died.
The presenter said: “I’ve just been informed that we’ve played in error some information a little earlier.
“I didn’t hear this myself, but it is incorrect, it’s a technical issue, and of course we apologise.”
Ofcom received two complaints over the incident and has now ruled that Radio Caroline breached broadcasting rules requiring news to be reported accurately and significant mistakes to be acknowledged and corrected quickly.
The regulator described the false announcement of the King's death as a “very significant inaccuracy about an issue of particular public importance”.
Ofcom said: “Radio Caroline did not broadcast an apology and clarification until approximately 30 minutes after the inaccurate announcements were first broadcast.”
The regulator noted that the station had been monitoring its output and an engineer was already aware something had gone wrong.
However, it said attempts to understand what had happened and restore the scheduled programme were “exacerbated by the circumstances of the presenter streaming the programme remotely”.
The station said it “took the matter very seriously” and acted “as soon as possible” after becoming aware of the error.
The staff member responsible was “reprimanded” and had apologised, the station added.
The station added that in order to prevent a recurrence of this issue, Radio Caroline had removed the relevant files from the desktop on the studio computer.
