Squirrel puts radio off the air

Presenters at a radio station based in Kidderminster were cut off from the airwaves on Saturday for three hours – by a squirrel.

The hapless creature somehow managed to get into the transmitter site and nibbled through a wire which caused a short in a power circuit breaker. It resulted in the station, 107.2FM The Wyre, based on the Stourport Road, going off air for three hours.

Station boss Pete Wagstaff said he had realised something was wrong when he heard the station go off air early on Saturday morning.

He said: "I called the transmitter service provider and they said it was a power problem. They called me back about three hours later to say the power failure was the result of a squirrel. At first I thought the guy was nuts but he explained exactly how it happened and I didn't like to ask what became of the squirrel."