In a weekend full of joyous royal family news, former BBC Breakfast anchor Dan Walker has hit out at the BBC’s coverage of another important royal event.
Dan made the comments on Radio 4’s The Media Show earlier this week, just weeks after he left the corporation for Channel 5.
He hit out at the BBC’s blanket coverage following Prince Philip‘s death and said that he thought the way it was covered had been a “mistake”.
Royal family news: Prince Philip death coverage a ‘mistake’
Prince Philip died at the age of 99 last April and, after his death was announced, TV channels immediately pulled their regular programming.
Instead, the same output about Prince Philip’s death was aired on BBC One and BBC Two simultaneously.
And Dan thinks this was a mistake.
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He also said that he thought the tone of the coverage went “too far”.
You can’t force grief upon a nation. You can report on it but you can’t make everybody feel the same way.
“I feel that you could naturally show that a story is difficult to talk about, is sad, is of national, international importance, without going too far,” he said.
Speaking about the blanket coverage, he said it was “right” the BBC had been criticised for it.
“I think that’s where the balance should have come in.,” he said.
Dan added: “Because you can’t force grief upon a nation. You can report on it but you can’t make everybody feel the same way.”
BBC did get complaints from viewers, too
Of course, Brits will remember that the BBC did receive a lot of complaints about the amount of coverage given over to the death of the Queen‘s husband.
However, it also said that it had not made scheduling changes “without careful consideration”.
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Dan Walker, meanwhile, starts his new role as anchor of 5 News on Monday (June 6).
“I’m just excited about having a completely different challenge,” he said ahead of taking up his new role.
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