BBC viewers certainly didn’t hold back as they shared their frustrations with the flagship channel following their thorough coverage of the US election.
BBC viewers were left up in arms over the US election coverage (Image: BBC)
BBC viewers have been left up in arms over coverage of the US election.
During Saturday’s visit (November 9) to the TV studios, BBC Breakfast co-hosts Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty woke up the nation as they discussed the biggest stories hitting the headlines.
This included the devastating railway bomb that killed 24 people in Pakistan as well as Student Finance England overcharging millions of graduates.
But the story that is still on everyone’s lips is the surprising result from the US presidential election which saw Donald Trump return to the White House for a second term in office.
Halfway through the show, the dynamic duo threw the show over to Samira Ahmed for her weekly segment of Newswatch who revealed that the main complaint to the flagship channel this week concerned the BBC’s extreme coverage of the US election.
Donald Trump won the 47th presidential election (Image: Getty Images)
One furious viewer argued: “The BBC are spending vast amounts of our license fee on coverage of the US election
Another agreed: “The election eclipsed all real news from Britain and around the world. Why? The Americanisation of the BBC has been on the rise for years. But this is a joke.” A third warned: “You’re meant to be reporting, not getting excited.”
After sharing some complaints from viewers on the show, Samira welcomed the BBC editor of foreign news Paul Danahar to address their comments.
He was also asked about the thorough coverage on the flagship channel frequently hosted by UK-based presenters which the company flew out for the occasion.
The editor explained: “We used our [US-based staff] a lot, they are the vast majority of the people we have in bureau and they were all over the swing states.
Samira quizzed the BBC editor of foreign news on the US coverage (Image: BBC)
“You’ll see from the output that they were reporting on all of the countries that were inside the studio presenting. But the reality is, this is a massive, massive election.
“It is a massively consequential election. We gave it the coverage that it required and if you look at how everybody else did it, it was the front page of every single newspaper in the world, it was the lead story on every single news channel in the world.
“The BBC has a lot of output with a lot of people interested in it so on this occasion, yeah we definitely surged. We surged like everyone else because it’s a really, really important story.”
After the segment hit the airwaves, viewers flooded to X – formerly known as Twitter – to share their further complaints online. One user penned: “Do Americans pay for BBC TV licence? There was no news apart from Americal election #bbcbreakfast.”
Another pointed out: “Complaints about the US election coverage on the BBC taking over the news in taking up #Newswatch… ironic #bbcbreakfast.”
