Queen Elizabeth II’s September 2022 death marked the end of an era across the board. The monarchy has never really recovered from her passing, and the left-behind Windsors have spent the past three-and-a-half years struggling to get the kind of attention, love, respect and coverage QEII received. King Charles has now spent his entire reign being heckled at public events, and getting eggs thrown at him. All of the big, public setpiece events – like Trooping the Colour – have seen their ratings and attendance fall off a cliff. Charles’s 2023 coronation was such a non-event, the press spent months making it all about whether Prince Harry and Meghan would attend (Meghan skipped and they were furious). Well, one more indignity for the left-behinds: the BBC has drastically cut their event-planning team, the same team which organizes coverage for big state events like “the funerals of major royal figures.” Someone at Buckingham Palace even told the Telegraph that they’re concerned about this…
Buckingham Palace is concerned that the BBC’s decision to cut its event planning team could affect the way deaths in the Royal family are covered, The Telegraph understands. The corporation is to slash its award-winning BBC Studios Events team, which handles national moments from state funerals to coronations, from six people to one.
The decision, blamed on cost-cutting, has been met with incredulity, with one source noting that the team is responsible for conveying Britain’s biggest national moments to the world. A source said: “In an age where not many people watch linear national television, these are the people who present national moments for the eyes of the world.”
The source noted that while many such moments could be planned and staffed in advance, others could not. These include the deaths of senior members of the Royal family and the complex operations covering their official mourning periods and funerals.
The palace is understood to fear that the decision will lead to a loss in production quality and scheduling prominence. The BBC insisted that it was “usual practice” to employ freelancers whenever it needed to produce such events.
The sole member of the team who will remain is Claire Popplewell, who oversaw the BBC’s coverage of events including Nelson Mandela’s funeral and the weddings of the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Her small but experienced BBC team has received plenty of plaudits, with its coverage of Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and her funeral both recognised by Bafta.
Last year, the BBC said it would spend £150m less on making programmes, warning that rising production costs had left it with an unprecedented funding challenge.
LMAO – the BBC’s coverage of Charles’s funeral, whenever it happens, is going to be a one-hour special in which the BBC can’t even get the rights to “Send In the Clowns.” I mean, if the BBC has a funding crisis, then sure, it makes sense to cut costs for these kinds of special programming events. It makes even more sense given the dwindling interest in the left-behinds and their biggest events too. It’s pretty easy to make a correlation between the photos of the mostly-empty Mall during Trooping the Colour and the BBC’s editorial decision to hire temps to do more limited coverage of royal events, including royal funerals. There was a huge amount of viewer outcry in 2021 over the BBC’s wall-to-wall coverage of Prince Philip after he died too.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Buckingham Palace.
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