Beeb boobed when it came to coverage of the Duke’s death
Along established principle is that whatever the BBC says or does is wrong. The criticism is often absurd and generally emanates from vested interests in turning opinion against the corporation. The Beeb seems to annoy everyone eventually, which strikes me as something greatly in its favour.
But boy they give the critics a tap-in with their coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh’s passing. We can guess what the man himself would have made of it.
It wasn’t the content; it was its bewildering extensiveness. Watching or listening to anything else, including other news, was out of the question.
We knew that broadcasting schedules would be instantly jettisoned when the day inevitably arrived, so pop went BBC1’s usual Friday night fare. This included Eastenders so at least it achieved a partial cheerup. However, the reasoning behind broadcasting exactly the same news simultaneously on three channels (with just 340,000 people tuning in at any time to BBC2 that evening) was not immediately obvious and BBC radio provided no alternative.
If that seemed strange, then the decision to simply cancel BBC4 altogether was mind-boggling. First up on that channel’s schedule was supposed to be Top of the Pops 1990.
Ask yourself, how scandalised would the duke or his family have been had people tuned in to a 31 year-old Jason Donovan performance? Denounce them as traitors? Unlikely.
Yet the Beeb decided, presumably, that not only would it be disrespectful for people to watch some old pop show, providing the mere opportunity to see it was too much to bear.
True, ITV1 was similarly awash. But other ITV channels were broadcasting as normal. Channel 4’s Googlebox received unusually high ratings. Do BBC bigwigs think this was disrespectful too?
They can’t claim they were making scheduling decisions on the hoof. They had planned for the event for many years.
Nor do the arguments “There are other channels” and “It’s a one-off ” stand up. People pay for a choice.
It was also the end of the working week, but with no prospect of a night out.
They know they were wrong.