The BBC has reportedly received 100,000 complaints from the public over its coverage of Prince Philip’s death, according to the Sun newspaper.
The BBC had cleared its schedules to cover the news when the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, died at the age of 99, on Friday.
EastEnders, as well as the MasterChef final had been replaced by news programmes, while BBC Four was completely taken off the air.
The BBC said: “We are proud of our coverage and the role we play during moments of national significance.”
However, the national broadcaster has declined to confirm on the number of complaints that it has received. The figures are due to be included within the broadcaster’s fortnightly bulletin for complaints on Thursday.
This comes after Prince Harry has reportedly arrived back in the UK and is in currently in quarantine ahead of the funeral of Prince Philip on Saturday. He is said to have arrived already at Heathrow airport on a British Airways flight from Los Angeles at 1.15pm on Sunday afternoon.
A figure of around 100,000 would make the BBC’s coverage of Prince Philip’s death the most complaints for a piece of programming in the history of the BBC.
Other programmes that have attracted a high volume of correspondence included the broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera, which had received 63,000 complaints in 2005; as well as Russell Brand’s prank call to the actor Andrew Sachs, which drew in an estimated 42,000 complaints back in 2008.
The BBC was not alone in adjusting its broadcast schedule to reflect the death of Prince Philip, with ITV and Channel 4 both having broadcasted extended news coverage of the story.
However, many viewers were turned away as the day wore on, with ITV’s Friday night audience having declined by a full 60% in comparison to its previous week, according to the overnight figures.
BBC One’s audience had also dropped six per cent week-on-week, while BBC Two had lost two-thirds of its audience, with only 340,000 people having tuned in at any time between the times of 7pm and 11pm.
This comes after pub-goers will need to wrap up warm, with low temperatures forecast as outdoor hospitality, such as beer gardens, reopen in England. Snow, sleet and low, freezing temperatures forecast for large parts of the United Kingdom.
The most-watched programme on any single channel on Friday night was Channel 4’s Gogglebox, with had amassed 4.2 million viewers.
On Saturday, the BBC had put a dedicated form on its website to allow viewers to complain about its TV coverage of the story, in recognition of the umpresidented volume of complaints.
The form was removed on Sunday, following the number of complaints beginning to fall, the corporation said.
