BBC News Channel, Too much coverage of Whitney Houston's funeral, 18 February 2012

Complaint

We have received complaints from viewers who felt there was too much coverage of Whitney Houston’s funeral.

Response from BBC News

The decision to broadcast the funeral of Whitney Houston live on the News Channel was one we made very carefully. The News Channel Controller and Editors took into account not just the impact that Whitney Houston's death had worldwide, both on her fans and on the music industry but also how it fitted into the weekend coverage of news stories and events happening at that time, on that day. We know from our audiences across the BBC as a whole that there was significant interest in the death of Whitney Houston, and we wanted to provide for that audience full, live coverage of the occasion. This was the funeral of a recording artist who had a substantial impact on late twentieth century music and whose death had come as a great shock to the wider music industry and to her millions of fans. This was reflected in our viewing figures and they show that the coverage of the funeral drove significantly higher audiences for the News Channel during this period compared to the rest of Saturday.

The funeral service lasted significantly longer than any broadcaster expected, and as we had committed to the coverage it would not have been appropriate to opt out of the service any earlier than we did. We recognise that the duration of the coverage was too long for some viewers, but we kept the news ticker going on screen throughout and those who wanted other news of the day could have turned over to BBC 1 for the main tea time bulletin there. The website and mobile app services were also running as normal, as were the BBC radio bulletins.

The pace and rhythm of coverage on the News Channel is often different at weekends to during the week. If there is no major breaking story we regularly show half hour features and longer items. The funeral of Whitney Houston gave us an opportunity to bring a significant and moving story live to our audience. We are sorry if this wasn't to the satisfaction of all our viewers but it is part of the News Channel function to be there when major stories take place, and we felt that this was such an occasion.