The news of Prince Philips' death came from the British royal family on Friday morning, April 9.
The media coverage immediately became massive and the BBC devoted the entire evening, both on TV and radio, to the death with extra mourning broadcasts and identical tabloids on both BBC One and BBC Two.
Popular programs such as EastEnders, Gardeners world and MasterChef were discontinued, but also news reporting on, for example, the corona pandemic.
Complaints record
During Friday and this weekend, more than 110,000 registered complaints flooded in - which means a new complaints record in British television history.
The vast majority were about Prince Philips' death getting too much media coverage and the complaints eventually became so numerous that the BBC set up a special website for the comments over the weekend.
"Surveillance of this incident took up the entire evening's television space at the expense of all other reporting, including the ongoing corona pandemic.
Some coverage is justified, but not to this degree ", was one of the comments from the TV audience.
A statement from the BBC is expected
The BBC has declined to comment on the many complaints and announced that they will make a formal statement on Thursday 15 April - two days before Prince Philips' funeral on Saturday 17 April which will also be a major media event.
The previous record is from 2005, when the BBC received 63,000 complaints after the decision to broadcast the musical Jerry Springer: The Opera, which upset several Christian groups.