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TagsThe Telegraph reports that the BBC received 473 complaints over the network’s coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial service.
According to the BBC, 91 of these callers were unhappy with the “excessive” coverage, 47 of them complained about scheduling changes, and the majority spoke out against the tone of the reporting on the event.
“I feel very strongly that the BBC should have exercised some sort of editorial restraint and cut back on the coverage of Michael Jackson’s farcical memorial service,” one said. “I tuned into the BBC Two to watch a previously scheduled program and found instead tabloid nonsense that has no place on the channel. This sort of overblown coverage I expect from Sky news but not the BBC.”
Another complainant claimed that the network was attempting to pander to a “younger” demographic, and that “the saturation coverage of this by the BBC was a complete farce.”
In addition to the coverage fronted by Rajesh Mirchandani on the BBC News channel, the BBC Two cleared its schedule to broadcast the memorial live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Radio 1 DJ Trevor Nelson introduced the coverage from London, and the event was also broadcasted on the BBC’s high definition channel.
According to the network, 5.2 million viewers witnessed the event via BBC Two, with 20 per cent of them watching the program during the early evening time slot. BBC online received 8.2 million unique hits – the second highest since the election of US President Barak Obama.
A spokesman for the network said of the complaints: “The majority of those calls, 302, was about the commentary on the program. With such an emotive event people will always have a reaction about the tone and style of the program.”
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