UK Politics - Taking the Land Rover to Heaven

[Soylent Brown]

I'm not suggesting they not cover it. I think it would have been entirely appropriate to dedicate a few channels and stations to non-stop coverage, and have all news bulletins on other stations focus entirely on it, but to have everything do the same thing is way over the top.

As mentioned further up the thread, it's likely the BBC did it so as not to give the more insane Tory flag shaggers something to chunter on about.

[Cas Stark]

Does this level of coverage differ from that when Princess Diana died?  Or the Queen Mother?  

[Filippa Eilhart]

I just want to know who won Materchef

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Does this level of coverage differ from that when Princess Diana died?  

Not even close to that. 

10 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

As mentioned further up the thread, it's likely the BBC did it so as not to give the more insane Tory flag shaggers something to chunter on about.

Just goes to show where we are at where this is actually suggested. The husband of the Queen dies and it’s all a big Tory conspiracy that it’s on the news. This place is so out of touch sometimes it’s blows my mind. 

[Spockydog]

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Not even close to that. 

You're just making shit up now. SMFH.

On the day Diana died, BBC1 was wall-to-wall hysteria. BBC2 had normal programming. A lot of the stuff due to be broadcast on BBC1 was moved to BBC2.

And British TV was basically back to normal within two days.

These are facts. Not alternative facts, but actual facts.

 

[Soylent Brown]

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Just goes to show where we are at where this is actually suggested. The husband of the Queen dies and it’s all a big Tory conspiracy that it’s on the news. This place is so out of touch sometimes it’s blows my mind. 

Your usual bullshit where you exaggerate a position and then attack the exaggeration.

At no point have I criticised it being on the news, I've criticised it being blanket broadcast on every single channel and radio station.

And given that various Conservatives have taken every opportunity to attack the BBC and their presenters for being unpatriotic while they're trying to stir up their latest culture war, it's entirely reasonable to assume that played a part in the decision.

With regard to Diana and Ol' Peanut Teeth, I can't remember exactly how things went (other than football being cancelled on the day of Diana's death), but the situations are quite different now with the sheer number of channels / stations.

[maarsen]

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Not even close to that. 

Just goes to show where we are at where this is actually suggested. The husband of the Queen dies and it’s all a big Tory conspiracy that it’s on the news. This place is so out of touch sometimes it’s blows my mind. 

Why the constant news of the death of Philip? is there a chance he will be reanimated in the near future if enough people believe in him? 10 minutes to announce his death and then get on with life.

[Heartofice]

Just now, Soylent Brown said:

Your usual bullshit where you exaggerate a position and then attack the exaggeration.

At no point have I criticised it being on the news, I've criticised it being blanket broadcast on every single channel and radio station.

And given that various Conservatives have taken every opportunity to attack the BBC and their presenters for being unpatriotic while they're trying to stir up their latest culture war, it's entirely reasonable to assume that played a part in the decision.

With regard to Diana and Ol' Peanut Teeth, I can't remember exactly how things went (other than football being cancelled on the day of Diana's death), but the situations are quite different now with the sheer number of channels / stations.

How was it blanket coverage? What is your definition of blanket here? An extra programme on channel four and slightly extended news? Which other channels were doing blanket coverage?

It might just be that people care that a member of the royal family died? Ever actually consider that?

 

[Spockydog]

Unbelievable.

[mormont]

I mean, the viewing figures for that weekend (ITV had some of its worst ever for the slot: BBC down significantly: Channel 4 very strong) suggest that while people did care about Philip's death, they didn't necessarily regard it as something that should interrupt their Friday telly. Which I think probably about sums up public reaction and indeed public sentiment to the Royals at the moment - broad support but in most cases, not that deep. People like 'em, they'd go to see the Queen, but they largely don't care to watch hours of coverage.

[Heartofice]

Well of course nobody is going to watch all that coverage? Does anyone ever watch repeated coverage of the same event? I don’t really know what that proves?

I think there is a serious disconnect here. Just because people on this board don’t care about the royals and are dismayed that there is this level of fuss being made about it, doesn’t mean that is reflected by the country at large. Honestly that is i think a repeated theme of most of the discussions around here.

[DanteGabriel]

36 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Just goes to show where we are at where this is actually suggested. The husband of the Queen dies and it’s all a big Tory conspiracy that it’s on the news. This place is so out of touch sometimes it’s blows my mind. 

Another case where your lack of good faith shows.

Nobody said it was a conspiracy. Someone observed that the BBC might have made a coverage decision to curry favor with the government. This is a pretty reasonable idea and not a conspiracy.

And of course no one is objecting to coverage as a major event. This is about the degree to which it took over all channels.

[Maltaran]

44 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Does this level of coverage differ from that when Princess Diana died?  Or the Queen Mother?  

While they’ve certainly given BBC1 over to continuous news for other big stories, I don’t recall them ever doing it simultaneously on BBC2 as well before - that was ridiculous and worth complaining about

[Fez]

What coverage like for the 2017 London Bridge attack?

From an outside perspective, that seems like the most recent comparably large story that might dominate the media.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Fez said:

What coverage like for the 2017 London Bridge attack?

From an outside perspective, that seems like the most recent comparably large story that might dominate the media.

Not really, considering the context of numerous Islamic terrorist attacks on the UK. 
 

Diana would be the most obvious comparison , and the BBC has coverage of that pretty much the entire day, and it took up the schedule for quite some time.

[mormont]

It's hard to compare the two IMO. Diana's death had several aspects that would have justified rolling coverage - it was untimely and sudden, it was not initially clear exactly what had happened and who was responsible - and it took place nearly 25 years ago, when the media landscape was very different.

Which really reinforces the point that there really aren't many objective measures of whether the coverage of Philip's death was proportionate.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

And what's going to happen when the Queen finally pops off? Are we all going to die horrible slow deaths because supermarkets and the water and electric companies have shut down for a month out of respect?

When Fidel died, Cuba declared, what in the Catholic world is known as a novena, though the Cuban government didn't use that term. For 9 days no live music, no liquors sales (except in the tourist hotels), everything other than food shops, etc., shut down.  TV was all memorial, etc. for the 9 days too.

But people were able to get together, and play and sing as just private individuals, so they did, and cried, because Fidel was gone.  Who would take care of them now?

 

[Maltaran]

I don't remember what happened on the BBC when Diana died, but I do remember on 9/11 they had rolling news on BBC1 but kept BBC2 as the normal schedule. Doing more news for Philip's death than for 9/11 definitely seems OTT.

[DaveSumm]

2 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

I'd call switching all of their radio stations on Friday to non-stop news reporting / commentary of Phillip's death blanket coverage, wouldn't you?

To be fair, they always tone down the radio stations after any death. It was pretty sombre for a couple of days when Michael Jackson died (for example).

2 hours ago, mormont said:

Which I think probably about sums up public reaction and indeed public sentiment to the Royals at the moment - broad support but in most cases, not that deep. People like 'em, they'd go to see the Queen, but they largely don't care to watch hours of coverage.

I’m not really sure where I fall on this debate, basically there’s a paradox at the heart of the Royals; the Queens strategy for them is to keep their heads down, so you don’t really have to think about them much. But then suddenly if one dies, he is still royalty. If being married to the Queen means anything then I guess, if there’s gonna be this much coverage of anyone’s death, it’s his. 

It’s excessive (and I’m personally not a fan of terms like ‘mourning’ and ‘grief’ being applied to people you don’t know) but at the same time, there’s never been more alternatives to the BBC. I haven’t really noticed any of this as I watch streaming services or YouTube exclusively.

[mormont]

Anyway, in other news. The government have announced that universities in England can resume face to face teaching... from 17th May. I've been whiling away the time picking random universities to see if their teaching timetable actually extends past 17th May. Haven't found one yet.

ETA - oh, apparently Oxford does. That explains a lot.

Also, remember what I said about the Alba Party, starting a new party and the difficulty of finding non-problematic candidates?

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/04/13/alex-salmond-alba-party-stonewall-age-consent-margaret-lynch/

We now have the unedifying spectacle of a man who was just cleared in court of rape, having spent weeks denouncing his female accusers as politically motivated and who is even now threatening legal action to get the most senior female civil servant in Scotland fired, claiming to be 'furious' because, er, women are being threatened, and insisting they be allowed a 'safe space' to say whatever they want without consequences. So it's perfectly OK to falsely accuse Stonewall of trying to lower the age of consent, but not OK to accuse Alex Salmond of improper behaviour.