Australian radio station could lose licence over prank call

Australian radio station 2Day FM risks losing its broadcast licence over a prank call to a London hospital that led to an English nurse committing suicide in 2012, after the High Court deemed its actions as a"criminal offence"on Wednesday.

DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian rang a hospital treating the then-pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles.

The incident gained worldwide media coverage when the nurse passed the call through to the Duchess' ward, enabling the radio station to obtain a host of personal details regarding her pregnancy.

Jacinta Saldhana, the nurse at the center of the controversy, later took her own life, with an inquest into her death revealing she had blamed herself for the incident.

In the aftermath, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) ruled that 2Day FM had breached broadcasting laws by airing the call without the consent of the second party.

The radio station won an appeal to the Federal Court regarding the decision, but on Wednesday the High Court handed down its final verdict, deciding in favor of the ACMA.

The company that runs the station 2Day FM, Austereo, could now have its broadcast licence cancelled, with the enforcement options for breaching licence conditions including a cancellation or suspension of the licence.

Both the radio station and the two DJs have publicly apologized since Saldhana's death in December 2012. Endi