Radio Caroline apologized on Wednesday after it wrongly reported the death of King Charles III in a false message that went out on Tuesday afternoon. The former pirate station said the mistake began with a computer error in its main studio in Maldon, in east Essex, and quickly activated the special procedure used for the death of a monarch.
Peter Moore said the station had to restore normal programming as quickly as possible and then apologize on air. “Radio Caroline następnie przerwało nadawanie, zgodnie z obowiązującymi wytycznymi, co uświadomiło nam, że musimy jak najszybciej przywrócić normalny program i przeprosić słuchaczy na antenie,” he said. In another statement, he said the station was sorry for the distress caused to the King and listeners, adding that the message was also meant as an apology “za wszelkie wywołane zaniepokojenie.”
The false report came as King Charles and Queen Camilla were visiting Northern Ireland, giving the error an unusual public edge at a moment when the monarch was already in view. By Wednesday afternoon, the archive of Tuesday’s program was no longer available on the station’s website, leaving the mistaken broadcast harder to review publicly.
Moore said every British radio station has “procedurę, którą wszystkie brytyjskie stacje radiowe mają przygotowaną, choć wszyscy mają nadzieję, że nigdy nie będzie trzeba jej użyć,” and added that Radio Caroline had followed the guidelines once the alarm was triggered. The station, he said, had proudly carried Christmas messages from the Queen and now from the King, “a obecnie także króla, i mamy nadzieję robić to jeszcze przez wiele lat.”
The apology lands against the backdrop of a station with a long and unusual history. Radio Caroline was founded in 1964 as a response to the monopoly and for years broadcast from ships anchored off the coast of England. After new rules in 1967 forced the closure of many pirate stations, it continued intermittently before finally ending sea broadcasts in 1990.
That past still hangs over the brand, and it helps explain why a procedural error at Maldon could ripple so widely. But the facts of this week are narrower than the legend: a computer glitch triggered a monarch-death protocol, the station cut its output, and the next step was the one Moore said mattered most — getting back on air and saying sorry to the public and to the King.
