UCC radio station apologises for 'night of Russian music'

UCC Radio has apologised to Ukrainians after accidentally playing hours of Russian music overnight.

Ray Burke, the UCC radio manager, denied suggestions that the songs played were “Russian propaganda music”, saying that no apparent breach of Irish broadcasting content standards was identified.

He said the music broadcast was predominantly mainstream Russian-language pop, including romantic ballads and older commercial recordings, some dating back to the 1990s.

Mr Burke explained: “UCC98.3FM is a student-led community radio station with approximately 100 volunteers and a small part-time staff team."

Late on Monday night, he said, “a student volunteer made an error while attempting to open our playout software, ZaraRadio.

“They inadvertently entered "Zara playlist" into a separate music application, which brought up a song called Nedolyubila by the Russian pop singer Zara.

“The application then continued automatically selecting similar tracks throughout the night. This was entirely accidental, not a deliberate programming decision,” and the music was changed when staff arrived on Tuesday morning.

He said they had acknowledged the mistake and apologised to complainants “for any distress caused, particularly given the terrible circumstances in Ukraine.” 

He added: “We have a small team of three part-time staff and approximately 100 student volunteers, around half of whom are new to the station each academic year. We provide training and support throughout the year, but mistakes can occasionally happen.

“We're reviewing our end-of-programme procedures and will reinforce these with our volunteers to prevent a recurrence.” 

One Ukrainian living in Cork, who heard the music, told The Echo she was “shocked” to hear Russian music from the UCC station while on the way to work.

She said that though it was mostly pop music which was played, the artists were largely vocal supporters of Vladimir Putin, and some had spoken out in favour of the invasion of Ukraine, “and it was on for hours".

She added: “We’re talking about a country that kills thousands of people, they kill children, elderly, civilians – we are trying to find a safe place here in Ireland, thinking we are amongst friends and people who support us, to tune in and hear this music is painful.” 

Another Ukrainian said: “People have lost their relatives, have had so much damage to their properties, have been kicked out of their homes, their country.” 

She described the accident as “irresponsible, insensitive and inappropriate”, and said full investigations should be done and action taken to make sure it does not happen again.