The coverage of Prince Phillips death. Over 100,000 complaints. Good. It was absolutely embarrassing. Every radio station played Radio 4 which was just tributes all day. BBC 1, 2 and 4 all showing the same thing. Ceebeebies had a banner on the screen announcing the death ffs. It’s going to be insufferable when Lizzie pops it isn’t it? Think it’s meant to last about 3 days. Pick a channel and show it on there if you need to have it on all day (which they don’t anyway) but don’t take over every channel ffs. And people are mad at Channel 4 for only breaking away from normal programming for half an hour or whatever it was. It’s insanity.
It sets up another round of the interminable culture war so I’d assume that blanket coverage was meant to provoke. Other than Line of Duty and Quest when we win I watch nothing in real time so couldn’t give a toss.
Totally agree, but need to add C4 has a duty to be ‘alternative’ as part of its licence to broadcast. The problem is cultural, we have a state broadcaster, 30 years of mudslinging have made people see it as something it’s not (perpetrated by media billionaires, enabled by their Tory mates). But it is what it is, a state broadcaster; how exactly would anyone expect a state broadcaster to act when the husband of the head of the state dies? I might be pi ssed off about it, I might see it as bl oody annoying, but I also see it as completely logical and exactly what I’d expect. Whilst were tied up in our culture wars, we forget the simple fact that we are not citizens, we are subjects. Like it or not.
I don't see how showing the same programme on multiple channels is logical and it's definitely not what I'd expect.
The BBC license is suppose to give people a choice of what they want to watch. Having the exact same thing on both BBC 1 and 2 was too much. They could have had Phillip coverage over on BBC 2 and kept the usual BBC 1 schedule of One Show, Eastenders, Masterchef etc. 3 pm on Saturday I will be watching the back to back IPL winners Mumbai Indians play Sunrisers Hynderabad with the likes of Warner, Bairstow and Rashid Khan.
Then you haven’t grasped the reality of ‘state broadcaster’ and ‘head of state’. Like I said, discussions around licence fees, unfair advantage etc etc for the last 30 years have led people to misunderstand completely what the BBC is. I neither support what happened, nor did I watch any of it. But I can 100% understand why it happened.
Even for the state broadcaster, one channel devoted to Phil the Greek would have been quite enough. No, more than enough.
I’m not saying what’s ‘enough’ I’m trying to rebalance the argument by pointing out the concept of ‘state broadcaster’. I’m a Republican, so any time spent was a waste IMHO, but the BBC isn’t designed for what I think ought to be right, it’s a state broadcaster
As someone who quite likes the fact that our country has a Royal family, I have to agree the coverage has been way OTT. What really annoyed me was the FA and EFL sanctioning TWO minutes silence. Why? Is this death twice as important as those who fought and died in the war? Football is supposed to be promoting equality. Then this. Madness. Show respect, yes, but it has just emphasised the divide and inequality.
I didn’t say that either. (it’s a million miles from relevant anyway) I’m just trying to explain why I’m not surprised when the state broadcaster behaves exactly like a state broadcaster.
Which is excellent! Let’s keep people focussed on how deeply unequal our society is. That should help towards us fixing it.
You'll be pleased to know that all games this coming weekend will also have another minute of silence, and black armbands to be worn etc.
Ridiculous. When fans are in attendance I can understand doing these things twice for Remembrance day etc. And even for this. For all sets of home fans etc. But right now it makes no sense whatsoever.
Hopefully, they use this as a lesson for next time a high-ranking official, or even head of state dies. If you think about it, we have never had this scenario before, a royal of that rank dying while we have had this sort of media(multiple TV channels, huge amounts of Digital, FM, MW and AM radio, untold amounts of websites and social media), so it's more than possible they misjudged the situation, and know it. When the Queen goes, they will hopefully have a much more appropriate response...