After complaints, BBC to review Jubilee coverage
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After receiving over 2,400 complaints about the Diamond Jubilee coverage, BBC on Thursday said it will review its performance over the extended weekend and look at how its coverage of the events could have been improved.
The BBC was roundly criticised after the Sunday pageant over River Thames, for a series of howlers and tepid coverage, with a leading television personality asking: "Has the BBC ever presented a more mind-numbingly tedious programme in its history?"
Since Sunday, the BBC received over 2,400 complaints from members of the public.
It has now responded on its Complaints website, promising to carry out a review of the Diamond Jubilee coverage.
The BBC said: "We acknowledge that not every aspect of our coverage was to everyone's taste, but across all the hours of broadcasting we have received appreciations as well as complaints. It is worth noting that this was a live broadcasting event of unprecedented scale and complexity amidst weather conditions which turned out to be challenging for all involved".
It added: "We review all the programming we broadcast and this weekend's coverage will be no exception. All the comments we have received will be part of the feedback we use when we come to look at how this weekend's programming could have been improved".
The BBC noted that it provided extensive coverage of the Diamond Jubilee through a wide range of television and radio programmes covering the many aspects of the celebrations, with a variety of tones and styles across the weekend for different audiences.
Across the Jubilee period, almost 70 per cent of the nation tuned in to some of this programming, it said.
Viewers and commentators listed several inaccuracies in its coverage, including referring to Queen Elizabeth as 'Her Royal Highness the Queen', instead of Her Majesty; the bow of the royal barge mistaken for the stern; upriver being confused with downriver.
Writer and television personality Stephen Fry wrote: "Has the BBC ever presented a more mind-numbingly tedious programme in its history? 'HRH the queen' said the first ignorant presenter.
HRH?" The BBC was criticised for allegedly treating the pageant as a party rather than a formal commemorative event.
Peter Sissons, a respected newsreader who retired from the BBC some years ago, called the coverage 'a disaster', and said that the way the pageant had been handled would "do huge damage to the BBC's reputation for being able to handle the big historic occasions".
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