Death of Elizabeth II: the British media make audience records

The sequence has already gone down in history. “Moments ago Buckingham Palace announced the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II“. It is dressed in black Huw Edwardsthe presenter of the British channel BBC, shared the news with the nation. According to figures from the UK’s Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB), 11 million viewers were watching the channel at that key moment on September 8. Across all channels, 33 million Britons watched the advert according to aggregator Overnights TV.

News sites and daily newspapers were also at the heart of the event. UK newspapers and news sites reached record audiences, with performances similar to US election results night in November 2020, according to the Press Gazettea media specialist.

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On the online information side, The Guardian revealed to have received up to 250,000 visits per minute. His article on the Queen’s death is even the most widely read in its entire history. “This increase [du nombre de visites] continued over the weekend, with all of our stories about the Queen and the Royal Family being read widely and at length“, underlined a spokesperson for the media. Another pure player, The Independent, doubled its audience on the day of the Queen’s death. The flow of visitors remainssignificantly higher” from.

Excess coverage?

Daily newspapers and magazines also gave pride of place to the event. According to the Gazette, the Telegram finds a “significant increaseof its paper sales since Friday, September 9. Same effect on FinancialTimesdespite less coverage of this type of subject, the business daily has seen an increase in the number of subscriptions.

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All types of printed press combined, 426 pages were dedicated to the death of Elizabeth II the day after her death, in Great Britain. the Sun published an editionmemory» of 36 pages, the Times devoted 40 pages to it. The Palme d’Or is awarded to DailyMail with a total of 86 pages! Faced with such intense coverage, Britons wonder, isn’t the media doing too much?

The Guardian itself published a letter from its readers criticizing the excessive coverage of other media. “Please, The Guardian, give due honor to our late Queen, but do not join in the hysteria and childishness of the rest of the British media. We don’t need to know who will look after Her Majesty’s corgis. We need to know who will look after the refugees after Suella Braverman is appointed, and who will look after the poor after Liz Truss is appointed?“.

This little ras-le-bol does not spare the other media. Even in France, fatigue is beginning to affect the public. The mediator of Radio France was thus seized because of too voluminous coverage of the death of the queen.