The BBC knows a good franchise opportunity when it sees one. This Saturday brings what director general Tim Davie hails as the “full glory” of the coronation of King Charles to its schedules – and indeed to ITV’s, Sky’s and RTÉ's, with Ray Kennedy gamely doing the RTÉ One presenting honours from the safer, cheaper remove of Dublin.
On the BBC, this Historic Event™ – a “threequel” in a televised coronation series that began in 1937 – is accompanied by a trail of spin-off programming long enough to make Marvel blush.
On television alone, the BBC is dishing out the Coronation Concert, Coronation Kitchen Live, Sing for the King: The Search for the Coronation Choir, Songs of Praise: A Coronation Celebration, Antiques Roadshow Coronation Special, Countryfile: The King and the Countryside, a “coronation-themed” Albert Square street party on EastEnders, a Carolean week on The One Show and Royal Bargain Hunt.
“An unparalleled breadth of programmes” is how this line-up is described by BBC chief content officer Charlotte Moore, lest anyone deem it a bit samey.
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Sunday’s soporific Charles R: The Making of a Monarch, billed as an “intimate portrait of HM King Charles told in his own words” (so, more of a self-portrait then) was part of its advance promo, while in a seamless brand crossover, Charles and Camilla have each been presented with the highest honour in all of the Commonwealth: a Blue Peter badge.
Alternative royal content is available. Channel 4 has served up Frankie Boyle’s no-prisoners Farewell to the Monarchy, the return of hilarious parody The Windsors and two-part documentary Andrew: The Problem Prince, in which former BBC journalist Emily Maitlis discusses her infamous Newsnight interview with the Duke of York.
The broadcaster says it aims to “provide an escape from the pomp and ceremony” of the coronation, which to some ears might sound like a quiche without eggs and to others will exemplify media pluralism at its finest.
But neither Channel 4′s happy existence nor the option for audiences to just switch off solves an ever-more-delicate problem of perception for the BBC: that to a hefty, expanding slice of its licence fee-paying audience, it is too royal.
The issue is not the volume of coronation programmes, but their prevailing tone. The monarchy still has majority support in the UK but multiple polls show it is waning. Only 32 per cent of 18-24 year olds and a minority 48 per cent of 25-49 year olds believe it should continue, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by the BBC’s own Panorama.
In a separate YouGov opinion poll, only 9 per cent said they cared about the coronation “a great deal”, with 24 per cent answering “a fair amount”. Both groups were outnumbered by the 35 per cent who responded “not very much” and the 29 per cent who said “not at all”.
In this context, the BBC’s regular assumptions that it is speaking on behalf of a single nation – reverent and giddy by turn – increasingly make it seem like it is trapped in a past it helped invent.
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Campaign group Republic has accused it of lacking impartiality and failing to hold the monarchy to account through output assessed as “insipid, vacuous and dishonest”. The BBC denies all charges, obviously. But it will have noticed that, of late, it is not just open republicans who are prepared to criticise it for reflexive royalism.
Even BBC royalty David Dimbleby has spoken sorrowfully of his belief that the BBC “would not go near things” such as the financial affairs of Buckingham Palace because of a “visceral feeling” that viewers would not like it. Dimbleby – who commentated on Queen Elizabeth’s funeral procession, but reportedly turned down a role in the coronation – has also lamented how the BBC received emails “almost simultaneously” from palace officials during the funeral broadcast dictating which clips could not be shown again. This, he felt, was “wrong, just wrong”.
It would be unfair to characterise the BBC’s royal coverage as monolithic. Last week’s Panorama, for instance, did a whistle-stop tour of slavery connections, vast land ownership and taxation exemptions, while homing in on the challenge King Charles has appealing to young people – a challenge well known to the BBC.
Its dealings with the palace have not been wholly abject. Behind the scenes, BBC news executives have joined those from ITV and Sky to fight for the right to freely reuse footage from the taxpayer-funded coronation.
And yet, by other measures, the BBC of 2023 is weaker as an institution than the BBC of late 2019 that saw Maitlis interrogate Prince Andrew on a flagship BBC programme about his relationship with late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Its coronation mini-season arrives just as an internal throne has been vacated. On Friday, Richard Sharp resigned as BBC chairman after a report found he created the appearance of a conflict of interest by failing to disclose his role in Boris Johnson’s personal finances in advance of his appointment. The delay in his exit did the BBC no favours.
The organisation is also in the midst of dismal cutbacks to classical music, television news and local radio services, including BBC Radio Foyle.
Neither the Sharp affair nor the impetus for cuts are the BBC’s fault. Both are symptoms of a Conservative government intent on blunting its influence and forever primed to ally with the monarchist wing of Fleet Street to lambast it for any traces of disrespect. Comprehensively owning the royal space can sometimes seem like a BBC strategy to confound these enemies.
Look, it was never going to allow a rogue guest to scream “abolish the monarchy!” down a microphone as the Queen‘s coffin was carried into Westminster Abbey. And, even if it is mindful of recent cracks in the royal armour, it won’t be racing on this occasion to invite the 21-year-old who threw an egg at Charles in Luton or the student who hurled five eggs at him in York to explain either their motivations or their poor aim.
The coronation is still a test. How prominently will the BBC acknowledge dissent? However much it might like it to be so, it is not 1953. Showpiece events can boost reputations and rally support. They can backfire, too.
