<\/p>\n
King Charles was in the middle of a visit to Northern Ireland
\nwhen people in another part of his realm were told, wrongly, that
\nhe had died. On a sunny May morning, the audience of Radio Caroline
\nheard the music stop and a sombre announcement intone that Charles
\nIII was no more. The mistake was realised fairly quickly, an
\napology was issued and much confirmation that The King was still
\nalive and well was given through the day. It wasn\u2019t enough to stop
\nthe story going viral, though. And the protocols for preparing for
\nthe death of the Monarch explain why this mistake happened so
\nreadily.<\/p>\n
Every broadcaster in the country has a procedure in place for
\ndealing with the moment that the Monarch dies. In this case, a
\ncomputer glitch is believed to have started the protocol running.
\nRadio Caroline\u2019s audience was enjoying \u2018What\u2019s Up?\u2019 by 4 Non
\nBlondes when the music stopped, indicating something was, indeed,
\nup.<\/p>\n
Instead of the 1990s hit, listeners heard a solemn voice
\nannounce that The King had died. This was followed by the National
\nAnthem and a full 15 minutes of silence before someone got wind of
\nthe incorrect announcement and activated The King Is Not Dead
\nproceedings. In this case, multiple references to Charles III being
\nvery much alive and well.<\/p>\n
However, the incident has highlighted one of the downsides of
\nbeing Monarch. Everyone is ready for your death, from the moment
\nyou become king or queen. On September 8 2022, broadcasters around
\nthe world were on standby for the death of Queen Elizabeth II after
\nBuckingham Palace issued a statement saying her doctors were
\nconcerned for her health. In this instance, media was waiting for
\nthe official announcement which, as that afternoon wore on, seemed
\nincreasingly likely to come. As soon as Buckingham Palace announced
\nthe death of Elizabeth II, in a short statement at 6.30pm, the long
\nplanned broadcasts covering her death started to take over the
\nairwaves.<\/p>\n
However, broadcasters and publishers have to be ready for
\nunexpected announcements, too. And that is why emergency protocols
\nare in place. They differ from outlet to outlet but anyone with an
\naudience or readership has a plan in place to announce major,
\nbreaking news such as the death of a Monarch. Given the solemnity
\nof the occasion, and the fact that the UK will experience an
\nautomatic change in Head of State, it\u2019s formalised and
\npractised.<\/p>\n
Usually, an announcement is made that normal broadcasting is
\ninterrupted and a short statement confirming that the Palace has
\nannounced the death follows. The National Anthem is then played and
\nregular programming disappears as reporting turns to the news of a
\ndeath.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s easy to follow when the death is anticipated. But
\nwhen it\u2019s not expected, broadcasters have to be ready to move
\ninstantly. When Diana, Princess of Wales died in August 1997, media
\nhad to quickly turn to their emergency protocols. Once on air, they
\nwere waiting for confirmed sources to tell them the latest as Diana
\nwas treated in hospital. The announcement of her death, in the
\nearly hours of August 31 following a car crash, was a shock and
\ntriggered the implementation of more emergency broadcasting
\nprotocols.<\/p>\n
In this instance, all was resolved very quickly. But it was also
\na reminder in an age where media is growing all the time, of the
\nperils that face established broadcasters and publishers. A big
\nnews story like this has to be right and if it\u2019s not, plenty will
\ntell you about it afterwards. In this instance, it was a computer
\nglitch that caused the trouble. Something triggered the automatic
\nplaying of the protocol around the death of a Monarch and no doubt
\nthose in charge of Radio Caroline immediately made sure it could
\nnever happen again.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s a reminder, too that when social media is broadcasting,
\nsharing and publishing all the time, a rumour can take hold very
\nquickly. And that\u2019s something all broadcasters and publishers have
\nto be aware of when it comes to this protocol.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalcentral.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" King Charles was in the middle of a visit to Northern Ireland when people in another part of his realm were told, wrongly, that he had died. On a sunny May morning, the audience of Radio Caroline heard the music stop and a sombre announcement intone that Charles III was no more. The mistake was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2431255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2431254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/This-is-why-it-was-so-easy-for-the-wrong.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2431254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2431256,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431254\/revisions\/2431256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2431255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2431254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2431254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2431254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}