LONDON — A historic British former pirate radio outlet has issued a formal public apology after an unexpected technical glitch triggered a deeply awkward false report that King Charles III had passed away.
In an official statement posted to social media, Radio Caroline confirmed the error occurred on Tuesday afternoon, tracing the mistake back to an unanticipated computer malfunction at the station’s main studio based in Maldon, located in the eastern English county of Essex.
According to station manager Peter Moore, the computer bug automatically activated the UK broadcasting industry’s pre-planned “death of a monarch” protocol — a standardized contingency plan that every British radio outlet maintains out of requirement, even as all hope they never need to put it into practice.
Once the protocol kicked in, Radio Caroline automatically went off air per the guidelines of the procedure, which ended up alerting on-site staff that something had gone wrong. Teams quickly moved to restore regular programming and deliver an immediate on-air apology to listeners, Moore explained in his Facebook post.
Moore emphasized that the station has a long-standing positive relationship with the British royal family, noting that Radio Caroline has proudly broadcast the monarch’s traditional annual Christmas Day address for decades — first airing the message for the late Queen Elizabeth II, and continuing the tradition under the current King. “We hope to continue carrying the Christmas broadcast for many years to come,” he added.
The station manager extended a direct apology to both King Charles III and Radio Caroline’s audience, writing: “We apologise to HM the king and to our listeners for any distress caused.”
The incident unfolded on the same day that the king and Queen Camilla were undertaking an official visit to Northern Ireland, where the royal couple even took part in a public performance with a local Irish folk group.
While Radio Caroline’s initial statement did not specify how much time passed before staff identified and corrected the error, UK domestic news agency Press Association reported that by Wednesday afternoon, audio recordings of Tuesday’s broadcast between 1:58 pm and 5:00 pm remained unavailable to stream on the station’s official website.
Founded back in 1964, Radio Caroline first launched as a pirate radio operation designed to break the BBC’s long-held monopoly over British radio broadcasting. For its first decades on air, the station operated from repurposed ships anchored off the coast of England, outside UK territorial waters to avoid existing broadcasting regulations.
When the British government passed new anti-pirate radio legislation in 1967 that forced the majority of unlicensed offshore broadcasters to shut down, Radio Caroline managed to stay on air intermittently for decades, finally ending its offshore ship-based broadcasts in 1990 before transitioning to legal licensed operation.
The legacy of Radio Caroline and other 1960s British pirate radio stations went on to shape popular culture, serving as the core inspiration for the 2009 comedy feature film *The Boat that Rocked*. Directed by Richard Curtis, the film starred A-list actors Bill Nighy and Philip Seymour Hoffman, following a ragtag group of eccentric DJs living and broadcasting from an offshore pirate radio ship in the North Sea.