The station said the staff member who played the files had been \u2018reprimanded\u2019 and had \u2018apologised\u2019<\/p>\n
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Radio Caroline has been found to have breached Ofcom rules when it accidentally announced that the King had died.<\/p>\n
The Essex 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 King Charles III\u201d.<\/p>\n
The messages were followed by the national anthem and around 16 minutes of silence before the presenter apologised for the error.<\/p>\n
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
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
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
An Ofcom statement read: \u201cWe considered this to have been a very significant inaccuracy about an issue of particular public importance.<\/p>\n
\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
\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
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
Radio Caroline said that they \u201ctook the matter very seriously\u201d, and that they had acted \u201cas soon as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n
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
It also said that its presenters and support staff had been reminded of the relevant procedures.<\/p>\n