{"id":733523,"date":"2026-08-10T13:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/733523\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:44:12","slug":"radio-station-falsely-announced-kings-death-then-broadcast-16-minutes-of-silence-as-panicked-presenter-ran-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/733523\/","title":{"rendered":"Radio station falsely announced King\u2019s death then broadcast 16 minutes of silence as panicked presenter ran away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iOIawn\">From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iOIawn\">At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 iOIawn\">The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n<p>Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n<p>Radio Caroline has been found to have breached <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/ofcom\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ofcom<\/a> rules when it<a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/home-news\/king-charles-death-radio-caroline-b2980386.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> accidentally announced that the King had died.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/essex\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Essex<\/a> broadcaster apologised in May after the messages were played on The Barry Marsh Show, one of which said \u201cwe have suspended our normal programmes until further notice as a mark of respect following the passing of His Majesty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/king-charles-iii\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">King Charles III<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The messages were followed by the national anthem and around 16 minutes of silence before the presenter apologised for the error.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cI\u2019ve just been informed that we\u2019ve played in error some information a little earlier. I didn\u2019t hear this myself, but it is incorrect, it\u2019s a technical issue, and of course we apologise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An Ofcom ruling said that once the presenter realised what he had done, he stopped the files and \u201cpanicked and left the premises\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The media regulator said it had received two complaints about the broadcast, and said it had breached rules 5.1, requiring that news is reported accurately and impartially, and 5.2, requiring that mistakes in news are acknowledged and corrected on air quickly.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2026-07-23T211208Z_2081879207_UP1EM7N1MW6OQ_RTRMADP_3_GAMES-COMMONWEALTH.JPG\"  loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"The Essex radio show apologised in May after the messages were played on The Barry Marsh Show, one of which said 'we have suspended our normal programmes until further notice as a mark of respect following the passing of His Majesty King Charles III'\" class=\"sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn\"\/>The Essex radio show apologised in May after the messages were played on The Barry Marsh Show, one of which said &#8216;we have suspended our normal programmes until further notice as a mark of respect following the passing of His Majesty King Charles III&#8217; (Reuters)<\/p>\n<p>An Ofcom statement read: \u201cWe considered this to have been a very significant inaccuracy about an issue of particular public importance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs outlined above, Radio Caroline did not broadcast an apology and clarification until approximately 30 minutes after the inaccurate announcements were first broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe noted that the Licensee was monitoring the output around the time of the incident and that an engineer was already aware of the issue, but that it took some time to understand what had occurred and reinstate the scheduled programme, with that being exacerbated by the circumstances of the presenter streaming the programme remotely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The station said the files that contained the messages were accompanied by \u201ca set of strict instructions to presenters and managers\u201d to follow before playing them, but that a member of staff played them out of curiosity.<\/p>\n<p>Radio Caroline said that they \u201ctook the matter very seriously\u201d, and that they had acted \u201cas soon as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2284739836...jpeg\"  loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Radio Caroline said that they \u2018took the matter very seriously\u2019, and that they had acted \u2018as soon as possible\u2019\" class=\"sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn\"\/>Radio Caroline said that they \u2018took the matter very seriously\u2019, and that they had acted \u2018as soon as possible\u2019 (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n<p>The station said the staff member who played the files had been \u201creprimanded\u201d and had \u201capologised\u201d, and that in order to prevent a recurrence of this issue, Radio Caroline had removed the relevant files from the desktop on the studio computer.<\/p>\n<p>It also said that its presenters and support staff had been reminded of the relevant procedures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-733523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}