Media: a sense of duty

11/04/2021

The death of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh is, without the slightest shadow of doubt, an important event, and a moment of great sadness to the Queen and the Royal Family.

That said, his death wasn't the only thing happening in the world, although you would have struggled to find anything else in the broadcast media on the Friday afternoon. And come the next day, the Daily Mail boasted of its longest edition in history at 144 pages rolling off the printing presses "as Britain mourns the death of Prince Philip". So self-absorbed had it become that it even published a "news" story on how this extravagance was produced.

It wasn't always like that. I recall reading a number of newspapers covering the outbreak of war in September 1939 and, although most national newspapers largely gave over their front pages to the event, they did cover other news as well.

But, over the years, and with greater intensity over the last decade, the media have lost any semblance of restraint. Given any event of any significance, they abandon any pretence of covering the news agenda and devote themselves to that single issue, to the exclusion of all else.

This time, though – despite the gravity of the moment – some people had had enough. As The Times records, under the headline, "Viewers reach for the remote as broadcasters clear schedules for Prince Philip", on television on Friday night, the Duke of Edinburgh was everywhere — but the ratings battle was won by a motley crew of armchair TV critics holding forth on Line of Duty and Louis Theroux’s latest documentary.

Gogglebox, which started at 9pm on Channel 4, was the most-viewed programme on a single channel on Friday, attracting 4.2 million viewers. All the main broadcasters suffered pronounced slumps in their viewing figures as they shelved scheduled primetime programming in favour of rolling royal news.

The decision was hardly universally popular: the BBC was forced to take the unusual step of setting up a dedicated complaints page as the extent of its multi-channel royal coverage drew protests from viewers.

The Observer takes the story further, recording that BBC One and BBC Two cleared their schedules of Friday night staples, including EastEnders, Gardeners’ World and the final of MasterChef to simulcast pre-recorded tributes from the Duke of Edinburgh’s children.

It appears, though, that TV viewers were not best pleased. BBC One, which is traditionally the channel that Britons turn on at moments of national significance, was down six percent on the previous week.

For BBC Two the decision was disastrous – it lost two-thirds of its audience, with only an average of 340,000 people tuning in at any time between 7pm and 11pm. ITV suffered a similar drop after it ditched its Friday night schedule to broadcast tributes to the duke. The highest rated programme on Friday, with 4.2m viewers, was Gogglebox on Channel 4.

Says the Observer, the BBC's handling of Philip’s death points to a deeper issue over the ability of a national broadcaster to force the country together to mourn a single individual, in an era where audiences are fragmented and less deferential.

When Diana, Princess of Wales died in a car crash in 1997, most of the UK population had only just gained access to a fifth television channel. Although the BBC’s reach among the UK population remains enormous, the growth of Netflix and YouTube means audiences have somewhere else to turn.

Matthew Bannister, who was controller of BBC radio in 1997, recalls that: "It was an extremely difficult and extremely different set of circumstances. We had in 1997 the death of a 36-year-old woman in a car crash coming completely out of the blue in the middle of the night. Whereas now we're talking about the death of a 99-year-old man, which is very sad, but not unexpected and not shocking in the same way".

Many other newspapers have piled in to cover the BBC story, even the Express which, without so much as a blush given its own extensive coverage, offers the headline: "BBC inundated with complaints about 'wall to wall coverage' of Prince Philip's death".

The BBC has received so many complaints about their "wall-to-wall coverage" of Prince Philip's death that it has set up a streamlined system for viewers to formally make their criticism known, the paper says.

It is joined by the Telegraph, which covers much the same ground. However, this paper adds that the move to set up a special complaints website has prompted criticism from "royal experts", who say it has given "special legitimacy" to negative reactions.

Richard Fitzwilliams, the royal commentator, has told The Telegraph: "The BBC’s coverage after the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh, has, as far as I have seen and heard, been exemplary so far. Any viewers who wish to send in a complaint to the BBC are always free to do so. However, to put up a special page for complaints is an extraordinary thing to do, as it appears to give them a special legitimacy".

As today's papers are once again dominated by the royal death, evident here is a complete lack of self-awareness. Far from abating, the coverage in the Sundays is just as intense as it has been, with much coverage of the 21-gun salutes (one pictured). At we're seeing gunners "taking the knee" in an honourable cause.

But so marked is the retreat from anything resembling a news agenda, that it has prompted the Independent to publish a piece headed: "All the news you missed amid wall-to-wall Prince Philip coverage". For a man who dismissed The Times as a "Murdoch rag", I somehow think Prince Phillip might have approved.

Apologists for the BBC's coverage suggest that the corporation is doomed to be criticised by all sides, with the Observer citing the "right-wing" Defund the BBC campaign, described it as "disgraceful" that the corporation was making it easier to complain about its coverage, saying: "The anti-British BBC has set up a form to encourage complaints about the volume of coverage of Prince Philip’s death".

This, of course, misses the point that the media coverage, in general, been vastly over-the-top, representing a self-indulgent tendency on the part of the media which seems to suggest an unwholesome detachment from reality. The tendency is for the media to be more interested in certain things that their audiences, making the arrogant assumption that, because they are interested, we must also be.

For my part, the excessive coverage diminishes the event. Gone are those two crucial elements of dignity and restraint, the exaggerated response inviting irritation and even ridicule in what should be a solemn occasion.

And while the media luvvies and the self-important commentariat indulge themselves, there is a price to pay – the so-called opportunity cost. The focus on this one event, almost to the exclusion of everything else, leaves issues which should be reported to go wanting. But the rest of the world – or even this nation – has not stopped because Prince Phillip has died.

Long before he died, we have seen the death of any sense of proportion in the media, and that corrosive self-indulgence distorting the news agenda. Yet, oddly enough, the Mail gives pride of place to a quote by the Duke, with him declaring: "Everyone has to have a sense of duty. A duty to society, to their family".

Sadly for us, the media seems to think that delivering the news is no longer part of their duty to society. We are all the poorer for it.

Also published on Turbulent Times.