The BBC’s tsunami of Prince Philip coverage is a reminder that you can’t force grief

Russian troops mass on the border of Ukraine…

The US restates its intention to defend Taiwan in the face of Chinese aggression…

“Terrorist” activity reported around Iranian nuclear sites…

The world has a few hotspots which might, one day, call for TV stations to go black as they pass to sombre, if not fearful, newsrooms. When they do, it would be good to know that due attention needs to be paid.

The problem now is that we have been taught a bad lesson. On ITV on Friday, Eamonn Holmes mumbled his way to handing over to ITN. One moment, he’s interviewing some guy from Coronation Street. The next he’s ad-libbing with the agility of a tumble dryer set to shrink and wrinkle. “Alan, Alan I’m sorry – I have to interrupt you for some very, very important news because we now, viewers, have to end “This Morning” and go straight to the ITV newsroom for more…”

MORE WHAT?

“Good afternoon.”                                                  

YES? WHAT?

“We are now breaking into programmes…”

WE KNOW THAT ALREADY! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, TELL US WHAT HAS HAPPENED! HOW LONG BEFORE THE MISSILES LAND?

Only then did we learn that the Duke of Edinburgh had died and, with all respect to the late Duke, there would have been a few sighs of relief before people could even begin to parse their sadness.

Even the Prince, with his notoriously short temper and dark sense of humour, would have been alternately irritated and amused by the speed with which the bad news was delivered. One was reminded of the time the Prince, in full view of the camera, shouted at an RAF photographer during a portrait session to “just take the f***ing picture!”

Likewise: just tell us the f***ing news!

ITV was far from the only culprit. The BBC made the kind of mess reserved for the winning entry to a Blue Peter design-a-stamp competition. Their response to the Prince’s passing has generated more complaints than Jerry Springer: The Opera; more than Jeremy Clarkson saying of striking public sector workers, “Frankly, I’d have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.” The howl of complaint was even greater than when the BBC gave PTSD to the nation’s gullible after airing Ghostwatch, a pseudo-factual show hosted by Michael Parkinson and Craig Charles, which promised to provide “irrefutable proof that ghosts really do exist”. Proof came in the form of a ghost called “Mr Pipes” who “murdered” the host, Sarah Greene, yet inexplicably left Charles unharmed to inflict his doggerel verse on the living.

The BBC’s sin, this time, was turning off channels across TV and radio. On Friday, BBC1, BBC2, and BBC News carried the same tribute to the Duke. Other channels went dark, with a vague message on BBC Four reading: “Programmes on BBC Four have been suspended. Please turn to BBC One for a major news report.”

You can excuse any preppers discovered in a bunker ten years hence who thought the world ended last Friday…

None of this overreaction is the fault of the royal family who, judging from recent behind-the-scenes photos of Princess Anne’s home, have only just discovered the three-pin plug. We can’t even blame the “men in grey” – those civil servants behind the monarchy – who tend to take their jobs too seriously, demanding formality when a light touch is more appropriate. This time the fault lies with TV executives beaten up by the culture war, and haunted by 2002 when Peter Sissons announced the death of the Queen Mother whilst – steel yourself – not wearing a black tie! Sissons later wrote about the reasoning. “The deciding factor, apparently, was the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the United States. The controller of BBC1, Lorraine Heggessey, was concerned that coverage of one royal death, when it came, should not seem excessive compared with the thousands who died in America. In a little-noticed speech to a professional body known as the Broadcasting Press Guild, Heggessey said plans for wall-to-wall deferential coverage had been abandoned.”

Or, it seems, not abandoned…

To be clear: the BBC could never win in the current climate. There was always going to be too little or too much coverage. Our relationship to the monarchy is meant to decide from which side of the barricades we hurl our insults. Some will mourn greatly, some less so, others not at all. Finding a balance is important and, arguably, how Prince Philip spent a great deal of life. Witness the number of people telling anecdotes about the Prince ignoring custom to serve them food or drink. He was the principal force behind moves to modernise the monarchy, opening it up to the media, and he seemed to understand the self-defeating nature of deference (something the Queen Mother advocated). He used to joke that he’d outlived the people who had planned his funeral, the irony here being that the BBC shutdown was done to honour a man who has demanded a humble send-off. He is the man whose idea of a funeral was summed up in an instruction he is said to have given the Queen: “Just stick me in the back of a Land Rover and drive me to Windsor” – a wish we will see carried out on Saturday. He was perhaps wise enough to understand the deeper truth that some inside the BBC failed to see. That grief demanded is no grief at all.