British radio station besieged by 'serial hacker' interrupting broadcasts with masturbation ditty
The first time someone hijacked a small British radio station to play a song about masturbation, the host turned "very white indeed," said Mansfield 103.2 managing editor Tony Delahunty.
"It went out over our airwaves and there was nothing we could do about it. We couldn't stop it," Delahunty told As It Happens guest host Laura Lynch. "And it went out twice before it faded."
Clips from the song — featuring the lyics "I'm a wanker! I'm a wanker!" — have since been broadcast on the Mansfield, U.K., radio station more than a dozen times.
Sometimes, a man's voice will interrupt the broadcast in the middle of a segment and taunt the guest, asking: "Are you a wanker?"
"This is a serial hacker," Delahunty said.
The Winker's Song by Ivor Biggun and the Red Nosed Burglar, was banned from British radio when it was first released in 1978. It features the British masturbation euphemism "wanker" 36 times.
And it's since become a favourite among Mansfield 103.2's listeners — much to Delahunty's dismay.
"I walked into a supermarket today to buy some food at lunchtime and two of the people at the checkout sang the song to me," he said.
"And we have listeners who have sent in notes to us saying they've told their friends, and we've had new listeners ringing in, sadly, saying that they're listening hoping they can hear the song. That is a worry. That is a real worry."
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The situation has even become profitable, Delahunty admitted.
"That's the most astonishing thing, because that was one of our big worries — that people would pull the advertising," he said.
"But our sales team have had more telephone calls, more texts, more fax, more messages coming in saying, 'Can you give us your advertising rates?' since it happened."
Nevertheless, the station is working with police and British radio authority Ofcom to track down the mischievous pirate.
Maliciously causing radio interference is criminal offence in the U.K., and a conviction could carry a sentence of two years and an unlimited fine.
Delahunty said the culprit is likely using a small transmitter to play the song on the same frequency as Mansfield 103.2 and override its programming.
"We're on the trail," he said. "We'll get them."
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Delahunty said he's concerned about listeners who have young children.
But more than that, he's worried about the hack's wider implications for radio.
"This person is a moron who's doing this. ... He's a clown, yeah? He's being silly," he said.
"Just suppose you had someone of a terrorist vein or something like that who wanted, in the middle of the night, to start putting out a message ... telling people to, for instance, move out of the township or something like that.
"What about something ridiculous like saying the hospital was closed down when people wanted to take somebody in for an accident? That actually going out of the airways? That deceiving type of culture."