[Closed] BBC Coverage of Prince Philips death receives record amount of complaints

Warning - very rude word in the opening seconds

Also warning - a shit video plays when you click the link.

^ LOL, true that. I lasted about 15 seconds.

It certainly seemed over the top, and I'm an ardent monarchist by the usual standards on here. I found changing the channel or station eventually fixed the problem though.

I think the media need to learn how unimportant it was to a large portion of the population, while accepting it was important to a different section. They just got the balance wrong.

i thought 80s day on radio6 was bad for work.... it was nothing compared to what happened at 12:10 on Friday.

after trialling Kerang! radio and then Kisstory, i worked in total silence for an hour or two before i quit and went home..... the issues from that didnt become apparent till this morning.. its not been pretty.

If I’m watching the news and a royal dies, I’d expect it to be in the news, because it is news.
If I’m watching a cycle race from that europe and it’s getting into the action bit of the race, I don’t expect the commentary to mention that a royal died the other day, because it’s not relevant in that context.
I care for the royals about as much as i do for any other rich famous person (not much)

It certainly seemed over the top,

I avoid most conventional news mediums (papers/programs etc), and still found it hard to avoid.

At one point the BBC had 3 or 4 articles in the middle of their Sports section linking to their latest Philip news pieces, none of which had any sports connections whatsoever.

Fair enough, have it in the news section and on the front page, it doesn't need to be site wide though.

This meant to be funny?

It certainly seemed over the top

Broadcasting it across every single BBC channel was absolutely ridiculous! Its not like we don't have specific news channels to go to, should we want too. I couldn't believe they even knocked 6 Music off air for blanket coverage.

Apparently BBC2 lost two thirds of its audience when it started broadcasting its Royalist fawning sycophancy.

I blame 'The Peoples Princess' and Tony Blair for all this emotional incontinence and competitive grieving. The irony of it all is that I bet Phil would have been appalled by it

Can you imagine what it'll be like when Liz pops off? We'll have nothing else for days, possibly weeks

I'm amazed so many people still watch the BBC. Not on very often in our house. Maybe 20 mins or so in the morning before Piers left ITV, but now have an excuse to turn over from the dismal duo on at that time.

But too much coverage of across the board. Pretty sure the man himself would not have wanted such a fuss being made.

Agree with the above - to run the identical programming on BBC1 and BBC2 seemed a bit absurd to me.

Can you imagine what it’ll be like when Liz pops off? We’ll have nothing else for days, possibly weeks

It'll make Princess Dianna's death and subsequent blanket media coverage seem under-covered by comparison.

I blame ‘The Peoples Princess’ and Tony Blair for all this emotional incontinence and competitive grieving. The irony of it all is that I bet Phil would have been appalled by it

I agree, but bear in mind for many parts of the world/cultures the national mourning thing is a big thing. MrsMC was in Russia when Diana died and they expected her to take a week off to get over it!

Can you imagine what it’ll be like when Liz pops off?

It will be exactly the same. Liz and Phil are/were Tier 1 Royals, the BBC protocols are the same for both.

It was kind of ironic though that some of the complaints to the BBC were that, by having the dedicated complaints page, it had made it too easy to complain.

At least when Liz dies, we'll get a day off. That's about the extent of my interest in the Royal Family.

MrsMC was in Russia when Diana died and they expected her to take a week off to get over it!

I flew out to the USA on the Monday afterwards and my girlfriend and I were offered commiserations for our loss several times. One lady we were renting a room from asked us if we wanted driving to the local church for the ceremony they were holding. We said no, we were going to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

At the time my girlfriend was working out there on summer camp too (well had just finished which was why I was going out). When she was called in to the camp bosses office she thought she was being told a family member had died.

In the total number of complaints there were around 200 about presenters not wearing sombre enough clothing...

I'm sure if they'd only run a few programmes and kept their usual schedule, they'd have had an equal number of complaints

And they'd be more scared of that than over doing it
The culture war footing if the current government would've loved it if the woke BBC hadn't been fawning enough

They've appointed a tory lapdog as DG tho so should all be fine

Anyway, wait until the Queen dies, it'll be a fortnight of this tedious national navel gazing

According to one news source his death sent shockwaves around the world ? Really ? He was 99 ! Hardly a shock , agreed the coverage was totally over the top , why have the identical programme on BBC 1 and 2 for 3 hours ? I wanted to record a programme about Whistle Test but all BBC 4 ‘ s schedule was cancelled , Saturday morning wife likes Radio 2 Sounds Of The Sixties that was off air as well as the rest of the schedule I think ?
I know change channels or turn off but I think that misses the point , as has been said on here the Beeb completely misjudged how much of the population could care less 🙄

sent shockwaves around the world

If someone actually believes that then...

Well, words fail me.

I think the coverage was justified as he was "Grandfather of the Nation" according to the wonderful Prince Andrew.

I’m sure if they’d only run a few programmes and kept their usual schedule, they’d have had an equal number of complaints

And they’d be more scared of that than over doing it
The culture war footing if the current government would’ve loved it if the woke BBC hadn’t been fawning enough

They’ve appointed a tory lapdog as DG tho so should all be fine

Anyway, wait until the Queen dies, it’ll be a fortnight of this tedious national navel gazing

Bang on. The Beeb was definitely overcompensating

They haven’t left anywhere to go when QE goes have they. We’re all fed up with what has happened with PP. it will be a 1/4 page in the Telegraph and Daily M and a half hour documentary on bbc2 if we all had our say, it seems.

There are plenty of countries where their royals aren't treated with the same level of obsequious fawning toadyness as our media tend to adopt - what do their broadcasters do when one of them pops their clogs?

Yeah not sure about that. My Spotify and Netflix were never interrupted

I’m also 120 quid or whatever the licence fee is nowadays better off. Maybe there will be a commemorative plate I can buy or something

Can you imagine what it’ll be like when Liz pops off? We’ll have nothing else for days, possibly weeks

Kershaw?

Funniest thing is you can tell from the replies in this thread who didn’t watch the video (or maybe didn’t understand it).
ie. nearly everyone 😂

to run the identical programming on BBC1 and BBC2 seemed a bit absurd to me.

What's even more absurd is that they were running exactly the same programming on BBC News channel as well. If you have a news channel why not use it for news like this and tell anyone who wants to see it to check there.

They even had a message on CBBCs FFS telling young kids to change over to BBC1 to see a major story!!!

the Beeb completely misjudged how much of the population could care less

Couldn't care less. No Americanisms here thank you.

Funniest thing is you can tell from the replies in this thread who didn’t watch the video (or maybe didn’t understand it).

I neither watched the video nor have a TV. Do I win a prize?

I liked the way his family eulogies all referred to his 'service'- surely they were servants

it is a big story so no issue with the BBC News channel running blanket coverage but having the same stuff on 3 channels was ridiculous.
no reason they couldn't crust put a ribbon along the bottom of BBC1 suggesting people turn over to the news channel for full coverage

I'm not sure I've actually seen any broadcast stuff on his passing.  I've seen it on news websites but just scrolled to something that matters (to me).

At least when Liz dies, we’ll get a day off. That’s about the extent of my interest in the Royal Family.

Sssshhh! Pretend else they might change their lizard minds.

There are plenty of countries where their royals aren’t treated with the same level of obsequious fawning toadyness as our media tend to adopt – what do their broadcasters do when one of them pops their clogs?

We have 9 sultans (9 royal houses) taking turn to rule as King. If they pass away while being the elected King we have prayers on TV channels almost all day and a public holiday. The prayer will go on for several days and all the ceremony broadcast live. Why are you lot whingeing?

according to the wonderful Prince Andrew.

Thankfully at least some of the complaints were also about Prince Andrew making an appearance 😂 (according to Grauniad anyway)

Is that meant as a parody like the Colbert Report? Or is he just shit...hard to tell these days

It's encouraging just how little most people really cared about the death of a racist old man, and that the monarchy isn't held in anywhere near the same reverence as it once was. It shows people are less willing to be 'ruled' perhaps (they still are, effectively, but not so much by a 'monarch' as in previous times). And there has been a political shift in thinking more towards democracy (precisely why those in power are desperately trying to undermine that), so it's a progression, of sorts. The BBC, effectively the 'state broadcaster', has an obligation to show deference to the Royals, it operates under a Royal Charter, after all. And programming would have been organised to have a much distraction away from actual important events as possible. I think if people understood the nature of the BBC, broadcasting and propaganda a bit more, they wouldn't be surprised why the TV was awash with content surrounding the death of a royal. Oh look, a squirrel!

Funniest thing is you can tell from the replies in this thread who didn’t watch the video (or maybe didn’t understand it).
ie. nearly everyone 😂

I watched it. I didn't detect any hidden depth, it was just a whiny little man pandering to flag nonces wasn't it - or did I miss something?

We have 9 sultans (9 royal houses) taking turn to rule as King. If they pass away while being the elected King we have prayers on TV channels almost all day and a public holiday. The prayer will go on for several days and all the ceremony broadcast live. Why are you lot whingeing?

What happens when one of the sultan's consorts dies? Phil wasn't king - he was the monarch's consort.

I think the coverage was justified as he was “Grandfather of the Nation” according to the wonderful Prince Andrew.

And my demented* comment back to the TV was that if my grandparents had received a fraction of the privilege that the royals receive then they might have got closer to 99. Does anyone know what the life expectancy of a royal is compared to us plebs?

*demented, as in arguing with an inanimate object!

or did I miss something?

How would I know? You didn't comment on it.

he was “Grandfather of the Nation” according to the wonderful Prince Andrew.

Presumably that makes Andy the nation’s Creepy Nonce Uncle?

Nicely done ditch_jockey!

We said no, we were going to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

And was it as various and interesting as you'd expect the Smithsonian Air & space Museum to be ?.