When the death of the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, was announced just over a week ago. It was greeted with general sadness – the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen had been married for 73 years after all. Also, since he was almost a hundred, he had been a public figure through the lifetimes of most of the general public. He’d also had an interesting life: a tumultuous childhood and an unusual mother and of course he’d had to deal with the challenges of having to be his wife’s humble subject and walk three steps behind her.

The Duke of Edinburgh had a long and interesting life, it was devoted to supporting the Queen and taking on public duties, and so it was fairly interesting to hear about his life and watch all the old newsreels and hear a few tributes. Once. Or twice perhaps, but not ad nauseum – which is what then proceeded to happen. The result has been an unexpected backlash by the public with much criticism that the media coverage was excessively subservient and out of touch with the mood of the country.

The BBC’s ‘wall-to-wall coverage’ of Prince Philip’s death provoked severe criticism: close to 111,000 people contacted the BBC to complain about it. They were extremely annoyed by the corporation’s decision to suspend regular programming to focus on royal tributes. Why, they failed to understand, could they not, even hours after the death had been announced, watch Eastenders or that year’s Masterchef final? What especially outraged many viewers was that while not just one but two BBC channels, BBC I and BBC II, were running the exact same content – the same royal tributes – a third channel, BBC Four also suspended its programmes with a message directing viewers to switch over for a “major news report.”

Putting all channels into mourning mode rather than just one main BBC channel came under particular criticism, as broadcaster Maia Dunphy tweeted: “Have just realised the BBC have pulled everything on BBC I and II (including the Masterchef final), to show the EXACT same Prince Philip tribute. The exact same programme running on both channels simultaneously. That is truly bizarre.” There was a fair degree of sarcasm as well: one person tweeted “So thankful that BBC AND ITV have extended coverage. How else would I know that Prince Philip is still dead?”, while another commented “This is getting as bad as North Korea - no-one wants to watch Nicholas Witchell going on and on and on about Prince Philip, hour after hour after hour on BBC and ITV...” When somebody defended the BBC saying it was acting just as the state broadcaster should, the quick retort was that the BBC was a public service broadcaster – not the state broadcaster.

Whatever side of the argument one is on, the fact of the matter is that viewing figures for BBC and ITV plummeted over that weekend and there were so many complaints about the rolling coverage that the BBC actually set up a dedicated complaint form for this on its website.

Meanwhile, the general media coverage continued to be stretched out through the week as various generations of royals took it in turns to each day release statements about the Duke and what he meant to them. Many people were also outraged that one of the first royals to issue a tribute statement about the late Prince Philip and speak to the media was his son Prince Andrew. The latter has kept a low-profile following the allegations that he had had sex with one of the underage girls groomed and used by his friends Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. In fact, Prince Andrew had to withdraw from his public duties following that scandal. Apparently the FBI is still keen to question him in connection with their investigation into the case against Epstein and Maxwell.

The over-hyped TV mourning illustrates that royal deaths cannot be treated formulaically in the 21^st Century. Prince Philip was, as one commentator pointed out “a 99-year-old man who died at home after leading a full and interesting life” so people found it hard to understand quite why this death was such big news after this harrowing year in which almost 130,000 people in Britain have died during the pandemic. Apart from tributes, was there really any further analysis to be done? After all, no political or constitutional void was created by Prince Philip’s passing – there were no questions to be asked about any sort of succession, he was neither a monarch nor a political leader.

But he was a man whose life reflected the tumult of a troubled century, a time of upheaval and change. A man whose main role became to support his wife in her role because it was more important than his and he was a man who fulfilled that role with good grace, making himself useful to causes such as the WWF and setting up The Duke of Edinburgh scheme which has helped generations of young people in Britain. Part of the reason that people found the TV reruns of his life so insufferable was because of Netflix: most people have already heard and seen the version of his story and the royal family’s personal conflicts put forward in the drama, The Crown. The other reason is, of course, that the recent media coverage was, in effect, tone deaf to the public mood: there is still the sense among bereaved families here is that there has been no proper tribute or memorial to the hundreds and thousands of people who have lost their lives to the Covid-19 virus. In such a situation, enforced mourning on the death of just one 99-year-old man seemed particularly outrageous.

The author is a former BBC broadcaster and producer, and one of the founding editors of Newsline.