At the BBC, the number of complaints about the programming after the announcement of the death of Prince Philip has well exceeded 100,000. Never before in British television history has been so much complained about the programming of the public broadcaster, according to British media.
The BBC’s previous complaint record dates back to 2005, when 63,000 people complained about it Jerry Springer: The Opera. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, 110,994 people have complained in recent days.
Special complaint form
After Philip’s death, the BBC radically changed the programming, which led to the cancellation of numerous radio and TV programs. Many viewers zapped away. Both BBC1 and BBC2 had lower viewing figures than a week earlier.
Within hours of Philips death, the number of complaints about the reporting had increased to such an extent that the BBC placed a special complaint form on the website to steer the flow of complaints in the right direction. This form was removed again on Sunday, making it more difficult for people to express their displeasure.
Prince Andrew
According to an internal BBC complaint log, which has been reviewed by The Guardian, viewers and listeners mainly felt that too much attention had been paid to the death of the prince. Nor did they understand why the BBC had adjusted the programming on all channels, while it could have been chosen to do so on only one of the channels.
“It seemed a bit that the BBC did not want to be criticized again that the broadcaster was not royalist enough,” says correspondent Tim de Wit on NPO Radio 1. In 2002, when Queen Elizabeth’s mother died, the BBC interrupted namely not the complete programming and then a lot of people were angry about it. “So now it seems as if they have completely turned to the other side.”
Incidentally, not all complaints were about the extent of the BBC’s coverage. Some viewers thought that the BBC was not critical enough, says de Wit. “There was almost no discontent about the prince and that could have been a bit more journalistic, many complainants thought.”
“
There was no escape in Britain.
Some 400 complaints were also received about the broadcast of a response from Prince Andrew. The prince was friends with the late American businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who has been convicted of sexual abuse. Prince Andrew is accused of also participating in Epstein’s abusive practices and for that reason has provisionally relinquished his princely duties.
In addition, The Guardian also noted more than 200 complaints about the presenters’ clothing. According to the complainants, they would have been disrespectfully dressed when Prince Philip’s death was announced.
Not only the BBC paid a lot of attention to the death of the prince, also the commercial channels and the next day the newspapers almost completely switched to reporting about Philip. “So there was no escape in Great Britain,” said Tim de Wit. “The royalist Britons, and there are a lot of them, of course they thought this was wonderful. But those who have less with it, really could not turn on the TV or open the newspaper this weekend without being confronted with it.”