The BBC needs to produce a perfect Platinum Jubilee

The corporation cannot afford to bungle its coverage of this year's celebrations the way it did the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012

Picture this: it’s some time last year, we’re in a BBC planning meeting, and the topic of the day is the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The question uppermost in everyone’s mind is: “How do we avoid the disaster of 2012?” For that was the year of our astonishingly durable Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and it was also a low point in the BBC’s coverage of royal events.

You might remember the grey, rainswept June day and the Thames Pageant – the centrepiece of the celebrations – with 670 craft, including some of Dunkirk’s Little Ships, escorting the royal barge down the river; it was a stirring spectacle. What you might remember less fondly is the BBC’s coverage, which attracted more than 5,000 complaints.

It was left to one of the BBC’s own – Michael Buerk – to deliver the most damning criticism. In an end-of-year review he wrote of his employer’s Jubilee coverage: “One enduring British institution was mocked by another which had shamefully lost its way.” At one point, Fearne Cotton and Paloma Faith made fun of Jubilee memorabilia. “If you’ve eaten too much,” said Faith, “you can just vomit into a Jubilee sick-bag.” Cotton replied: “Isn’t that just lovely? And you can choose your colour, red or blue.” Buerk was biting: “On the screen, a succession of daytime airheads preened themselves, or gossiped with even more vacuous D-list celebrities. With barely an exception, they were cringingly inept. Nobody knew anything and nobody cared. The main presenter couldn’t even work out what to call the Queen.”

Doubtless many of his colleagues shared his embarrassment because, if there is one thing the BBC has had plenty of practice at, it is delivering royal coverage. From official visits abroad to weddings and funerals, ever since the Coronation itself, the BBC has been the vector which has brought the Royal family into our living rooms. And, at least until 2012, did so mostly with aplomb. Older viewers will remember the gravitas of Richard Dimbleby; others, his son David, who also managed to be respectful and authoritative without lapsing into obsequiousness.

So what went wrong? A clue was provided by one of the BBC’s perennial cheerleaders, Mark Damazer, a former controller of Radio 4. As the critics gave voice, he went on to the Today programme to offer, if not a defence, at least an explanation. The BBC, he said, had been “nervous and worried” about appearing too formal and instead had aimed for coverage that was “informal, inclusive and warm”. That has the ring of truth, for nothing upsets the denizens of New Broadcasting House more than the thought of appearing stuffy.

The Queen with Prince Philip in 2012Credit: Getty

Formality is out of fashion as, in some quarters, is the monarchy. The liberal elites in the media, academia and the other professions are generally scornful of the notion of a hereditary head of state (“Why not me?” they think). What they forget is the deep regard that most of the rest of us have for the Queen and the institution she heads; it is only she, some will reflect, who has saved us from a Blair presidency – or worse.

In my time in the corporation’s newsrooms, I met a disproportionate number of republican sympathisers (a disproportionate number of Marxists too, but that’s another story), and this explains why it often seems to display a split personality in its coverage of royalty; sometimes fawningly obsequious, sometimes deeply, even sinisterly, antagonistic. Consider, for instance, the saga of Martin Bashir and his notorious interview with Princess Diana.

I have little doubt that the reason that Bashir was encouraged in his duplicitous endeavour by BBC bosses was because, privately, they enjoyed the idea of embarrassing the monarchy; if damage was done, they weren’t going to lose sleep over it.

The Diana interview, along with other episodes, has undermined the Royal family’s trust in the BBC. After the corporation screened an unflattering documentary, The Princes and the Press, about William and Harry, Buckingham Palace withdrew an invitation to the BBC to cover the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Christmas carol service last year and gave it to ITV instead. And – whether coincidentally or not – it was ITV that kicked off the Jubilee coverage on Sunday evening with the first big event: the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Celebration staged in the Royal Windsor Horse Showground.

Roman Kemp and Kirsty Young, the corporation’s 2022 hostsCredit: Getty/PA

That broadcast has also been criticised and, to be sure, it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Co-presenter Phillip Schofield should probably stick to This Morning’s sofa. But ITV’s failings mean it is all the more important that the BBC gets the tone of the main Jubilee celebrations exactly right. Its chief content officer, Charlotte Moore, says: “The BBC is marking the Queen’s momentous Platinum Jubilee in spectacular style with an unprecedented range of special programming. In celebration of Her Majesty’s 70 years of service, the BBC will bring the people of the UK together with something for everyone.”

Having to please everyone is the price the BBC pays for being “the national broadcaster” and, in truth, is an almost impossible task. There will be no pleasing the country’s republican tendency (around 30 per cent of the population, according to opinion polls), and there will be snarky commentary from the usual suspects about the whole Jubilee razzamatazz. But what Ms Moore will be desperate to avoid is the kind of stinging criticism which surfaced after the BBC’s efforts 10 years ago.

At a time when the corporation is locked in tortured negotiations with the Government about the future of the licence fee, any misjudgment or crass misstep will only give its enemies more ammunition.