UK radio station apologises for accidentally announcing king’s death | Radio
A radio station has apologized for “any distress caused” after mistakenly announcing that King Charles had died.
The erroneous announcement was made on Tuesday afternoon due to a computer error at Radio Caroline’s main studio in Essex.
Station manager Peter Moore wrote on Facebook: “Due to a computer error in our main studio, the Death of a Monarch procedure, which every station in the UK had on hand in the hope of not needing it, was mistakenly activated on the afternoon of Tuesday 19 May, accidentally announcing that HM King had passed away.
“Radio Caroline then duly went silent, which warned us to return to programming and apologize on air.
“Caroline was delighted to publish the Christmas message from Her Majesty the Queen, and now the King, and we hope to do so for years to come.
“We apologize to HM the King and our audience for any distress we have caused.”
The post did not specify how long it took for the error to be noticed, but as of Wednesday afternoon, playback of Tuesday’s broadcast between 1:58 p.m. and 5 p.m. was not available on the station’s website.
The incident occurred while the king and queen were attending a demonstration with a public group in Northern Ireland.
Charles, 77, and Camilla, 78, also watched dancers and sipped Irish whiskey in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter on the first day of their trip.
Founded in 1964, Radio Caroline is a former pirate radio station operated from ships off the coast of England.
It continued intermittently until it ended offshore broadcasting in 1990, after legislation in 1967 forced many pirate broadcasters to close.
Caroline and other similar pirate stations inspired the 2009 comedy film The Boat that Rocked, starring Bill Nighy and Philip Seymour Hoffman, about a group of eccentric DJs living and working together at sea.
On Tuesday, the BBC apologized for a timing error that resulted in listeners of Elaine Paige’s show having to listen to a rerun of the previous week’s programme.
The 78-year-old singer and actor hosts a weekly program called Elaine Paige on Sunday on Radio 2.
A mistake meant listeners misheard the second hour of last Sunday’s show.
A BBC spokesman said: “Unfortunately, due to a scheduling error, the second hour of the program was broadcast incorrectly yesterday.
“We apologize to listeners and are currently investigating how this happened.
“The right program is now available on BBC Sounds.”
