Events

Remember in March that mild media ruckus when it was revealed that the BBC planned to reduce its Royal events team from six to just one ? 

More quietly, that rolled over into a short-notice decision by the BBC not to provide its traditional outside-broadcast coverage of the State Opening of Parliament a week ago - causing stress amongst the administrators at Westminster, and more than raised eyebrows in the Royal Household. 

Yes, there was a programme on BBC1. But the BBC programme covered the carriage procession from Buckingham Palace with existing locked-off cameras and a hovering helicopter, with commentary from a panel in the BBC's Westminster studio. At the last State Opening, back in 2024, there were live cameras tracking the carriage en route as well as the helicopter, the panel was in a grand House of Lords side room, and a roving reporter talked to participants in the Commons lobby ahead of the event. (You can check all this because the 2024 Opening has got to YouTube - though it's not still on the BBC iPlayer)

When it got to the internal processing and ceremonial, the Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit and their preferred supplier Bow Tie Productions had to provide coverage "with just a few week's notice", setting up 25 camera coverage that the BBC decided to duck.  Nice.