The BBC have been overwhelmed with complaints about coverage of Prince Philip

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

Showing the same thing on 2 channels simultaneously.

Now you just enter your email to complain as they couldn’t cope with the amount of complaints.

There was hardly anything on TV about Prince Philip yesterday and having looked at the listings, nothing today. Therefore nothing to moan about any more - until the funeral of course.

There does seem to have been an awful lot of moaning about not more than 24 hours of slight inconvenience. It makes me wonder how people would cope if there was a long power cut or their roof fell in.

I was thinking of my mother, she was a great one for making a mountain out of a molehill. If anything was out of kilter for a short while you'd have thought the world had come to an end.

@Bluegrass

The BBC aren’t saying that YOU have to be in mourning. You can whack on a CD and dance naked if you want. You can turn cartwheels and sing Sex Pistols tracks. More mundanely, you can watch or listen to thousands of hours of content on iplayer or Sounds, no matter how irreverent it is.

What they are saying though is that for a short period of time THEY are required to adopt an attitude of mourning, and that will impact their output for a bit.

It isn’t North Korea. It isn’t chasing ratings. It’s saying that as a public broadcaster whose existence is based on a royal warrant, this is how they are required to behave at the moment. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Absolutely agree with this. Really can't believe so many people actually made complaint over 2 state channels covering a death of a senior royal. Even if you are anti royal/ republican it is only for a couple of days and the simultaneous broadcasting for only one afternoon, not much to get frothing about.

I complained.

It was totally over the top.

And sorry but at a time when we've lost over 130,000 people to coronavirus, plus the ones who have died or will die awaiting treatment for other illnesses as the NHS can't cope, well one man getting all this is in poor taste. Especially when others of his age would never have spent 28 days in hospital having treatment and ops only to die three weeks later. A waste of taxpayer money.

I am sure it's incredibly sad for his family and friends. But the man was a bigot, he embarassed the country more than once. He was patron of the WWF yet thought nothing of shooting animals and fox hunting. He was vile to Charles when he grew up and don't get me started on his behaviour towards Diana and his hatred of Fergie.

I can't get too excited about what the BBC did. He died that morning, it was announced around midday, and for around 24 hours there was lots of coverage. Which is to be expected.

I was vaguely miffed there was no BBC4 for the evening, but reckoned that was just one day (and that was the case). Then went old school and watched a DVD with the kids.

I watched some coverage- maybe an hour and was interested to hear about his early life, which sounded not at all what I'd call privileged, and quite damaging really.

@RampantIvy

I don't think it is classism. It's history, a one off event. Nothing to do with class.

Then why do most of the replies in this thread, and all the other threads, reek of it?

I complained and it is the first complaint I have ever made. I am not anti royalist and I have a lot of respect for him but one channel was enough. There was no need to have the same programme on BBC 1 and 2 when there was already an alternative on ITV.
I haven’t seen any news since Thursday because it takes too long to get through the first item - I wouldn’t mind if it was new but it is so repetitive.

@HeddaGarbled

The BBC is in a difficult place right now. The Tories have been softening us all up to remove their public funding for some time and it’s Tories who would have hung them out to dry if they hadn’t gone ‘state broadcaster’.

We’ll lose them soon anyway. Then we’ll be like the US and we’ll have a Fox copy for the right wingers and a CNN copy for the left wingers and no one will ever have to listen to the truth anymore, just a circle jerk of people who agree with you.

We’ll be poorer for it, but hey, you won’t have to miss whatever trash TV programme you use to distract yourself from the crapification of news media.

But that's all i want from the BBC - impartiality. Not North Korea.

If they're really that scared of the government then put them out of their misery now.

The back to back coverage is ridiculous and don't get me started on the people going to the castles and the palaces....

There was this guy interviewed who was maybe in his 40s and lived up north and he had got his young children (aged 9 or 7 or thereabouts) up at 1am and travelled through the night to put a bunch of flowers at BP.

The kids looked exhausted.
Just why?

And this is despite BP and the Government asking people not to do this but to give to a charity of their choice instead.

The actor Paul Ritter died recently at the age of 54. What I would have loved is back to back viewing of everything he's ever been in, stage and screen. He sounds like an amazing man based on what people have been saying. Can we do that instead?

I got a few of the details wrong... it was 1am they laid the flowers. There's a thread on it !

It was on BBC1, BBC2, and BBC News. It was wrong in my opinion. Things were kicking off in Northern Ireland, there are changes to lockdown laws coming up, but none of that was covered on the news. The BBC has a responsibility to inform the public on a broad range of topics, not just about the death of one man. Other things happened on Friday and that should have been acknowledged.

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden in March: "It is so important that the BBC reflects and respects the values of the whole of the UK". There are significant anti-royalty minorities in the country (34% of 18-25 year olds, 21% overall) and as such the BBC has a duty to reflect that sentiment in its programming. That is the issue, not what privately funded channels choose to do.

Really can't believe so many people actually made complaint over 2 state channels covering a death of a senior royal

It wasn't 2 channels, it was 5. It wasn't different coverage of the event on each, the same programme was being simultaneously broadcast. So it wasn't saying that we are covering the event with 5 different programmes because theres so much to say, they were saying we are covering the event at the exclusion of anything else, even though we've only one set of coverage.

Cover the death 24/7 on one channel by all means. But don't effectively switch off everything else and tell us it's because we are mourning. Amazing guy, but I didn't now him. I can find the coverage interesting but I don't want to be told that I must be mourning for someone I didn't know.

the BBC has a duty to reflect that sentiment in its programming.

Do you not think the BBC has been obliged to show what they have done? A long-ago worked-out contract? As pp said upthread, the BBC is being criticised here for being too royalist and yet too leftist here for the same thing.

Daisypond

The reason I complained is because the consumers of the BBC need to give feedback abount things like this otherwise the BBC will continue to represent the views of its major sponsor (govt) instead of us. There isn't a way to give feedback in a way which will be counted and published other than through the complaints procedure. Even if they are following a protocol arrived at 20 years ago I hope that the feedback (complaints) they're getting now prompt them to revise their policy.

There are significant anti-royalty minorities in the country (34% of 18-25 year olds, 21% overall) and as such the BBC has a duty to reflect that sentiment in its programming

And an awful lot more who, like me, bear the monarchy no ill will but aren’t remotely interested. Why should the relative minority who are actively royalist get wall to wall coverage, and the rest of us nothing at all? The woeful viewing figures suggest that national sentiment was not being reflected in this instance.

I remember the compulsory national sentiment (it was the ‘national mood’ then) when Diana died. It was chilling. You HAD to be sad otherwise you were a dreadful and unfeeling person. It was as if the world had gone barmy. All those nutcases lining the route shrieking “Diana!” as the coffin went by and flinging flowers.

I didn’t like being co-opted into other people’s self-serving griefwank then, and I still don’t.

@bonfireheart

The actor Paul Ritter died recently at the age of 54. What I would have loved is back to back viewing of everything he's ever been in, stage and screen. He sounds like an amazing man based on what people have been saying. Can we do that instead?

I too would have loved this instead!

I can understand why it took over 1 channel. I can’t understand why it continued past 7pm, instead small bulletins between each program would have been more appropriate. There was little more to really add. Maybe continue on one channel and move normal bbc1 programs to bbc2 for the night. What I can’t understand is why the shutdown bbc4.

And yes there are other freeview channels, but a lot of people cannot afford streaming or sky and are also stuck indoors in lockdown. TV has been a lifeline for lots of people in lockdown and for many it is a companion. But I would expect half of those people weren’t interested and were probably made more depressed by it. As for the idiots breaking lockdown to come to Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle

You keep saying such as listening to music. Er I was trying to. Get it yet?

You aren't getting it but I suspect you are just being goady now. The BBC is funded by licenses payers but it has protocols for events such as a Royal death that it must follow, whether or not some people complain or dislike it. You had other options but chose to keep listening and getting upset about something you could have easily switched off. If you choose to wind yourself up until you froth, then that's on you. You had other options, unless R6 is the only form of music in your universe.

You can go on about state broadcaster all you like however it’s a service the public pay for and if they fail to listen to feedback and take your approach people will choose to stop paying.

Who says they haven't listened? They will likely listen to what was said and review their policies but they won't do that in such a short space of time, they will follow the protocols that they have right now. He passed on Friday and it is Sunday morning now, to expect them to have adapted that quickly is frankly ridiculous.

Are people so addicted to television that they can't bear a day off just two channels? I'm really surprised to hear they actually took the trouble to complain!

@BoKatan

It was on BBC1, BBC2, and BBC News. It was wrong in my opinion. Things were kicking off in Northern Ireland, there are changes to lockdown laws coming up, but none of that was covered on the news. The BBC has a responsibility to inform the public on a broad range of topics, not just about the death of one man. Other things happened on Friday and that should have been acknowledged.

Yes this too, Northern Ireland is on fire, the economy is in the toilet, people are losing jobs and homes and we are facing a crisis of healthcare and mental health yet lets all stop what we are doing and sit in misery about a man very few of us have anything whatsoever in common with and never will.

I think the Royals need to realise their level of privilege is seen as gross and unnecessary.
I think how they behave in this situation will make or break public perception as there are growing calls to get rid.

@KatherineJaneway

You keep saying such as listening to music. Er I was trying to. Get it yet?

You aren't getting it but I suspect you are just being goady now. The BBC is funded by licenses payers but it has protocols for events such as a Royal death that it must follow, whether or not some people complain or dislike it. You had other options but chose to keep listening and getting upset about something you could have easily switched off. If you choose to wind yourself up until you froth, then that's on you. You had other options, unless R6 is the only form of music in your universe.

You can go on about state broadcaster all you like however it’s a service the public pay for and if they fail to listen to feedback and take your approach people will choose to stop paying.

Who says they haven't listened? They will likely listen to what was said and review their policies but they won't do that in such a short space of time, they will follow the protocols that they have right now. He passed on Friday and it is Sunday morning now, to expect them to have adapted that quickly is frankly ridiculous.

Where have I said when I want it changed? I haven’t so you are assuming incorrectly.

If they listen for when the Queen dies then good.

The actor Paul Ritter died recently at the age of 54. What I would have loved is back to back viewing of everything he's ever been in, stage and screen. He sounds like an amazing man based on what people have been saying. Can we do that instead?

And he didn’t even get a message from the Pope! Shall we all complain to the Vatican? And the White House and Australian and Canadian governments etc etc.

I wonder what the difference was between these two men.

One was a racist, the other wasn't.
One was an over privileged well paid man and the other wasn't.
One cut ribbons, the other didn't.

Here's another example, Matt Ratana police officer killed and given the smallest of funerals cos of covid restrictions. A man who saved lives and dies terribly young doing his duty.

The obsession with the Royal family is a weird cult.