King Charles’ Coronation causes ‘budget constraints’ for popular nature show

King Charles has been a known advocate of the environment over the years when he was Prince of Wales.

However, in ironic turn of events, a nature show was seemingly cancelled as BBC spent so much money on broadcasting the King’s coronation and Queen Elizabeth’s funeral that which led to budget restrictions, reported The Mirror.

Michaela Strachan, TV presenter for Autumnwatch, expressed that she was ‘sad’ about the cancellation of the popular wildlife programme records the changes in nature across four days in autumn, but understands that it was the ‘right decision.’

“It’s really sad,” she said. “But when you think that budgets are getting smaller, the choice was either to strip the budget over all the programmes, or to strip one of the programmes – and I think that was the best decision.”

She continued, “I would rather keep Springwatch at the heart of the Watches, and keep the budget. Of course, I’d rather we had all three, but if you’re faced with that decision...

“Let’s be honest. We have a cost-of-living crisis, people aren’t buying their TV licences, we’ve had a very expensive coronation and a very expensive Queen’s funeral, which has cost the BBC a lot of money.

She also added that it was a shame that the nature programme was axed given the warm reception viewers gave David Attenborough’s series Wild Isles. “It does seem a shame after everyone raved about Wild Isles. You would have thought that everyone would have been really keen to learn more.”

“It was the right decision. Disappointing but the right one,” she surmised.

The BBC axed the autumn version after 17 years, citing “challenging times financially”, and said it will invest more into Springwatch and Winterwatch.