THE bosses at the BBC must be relieved that, unlike their more commercial competitors, its day-to-day income does not rely on advertising revenue streams tied to their audience viewing figures. Negative audience reaction to the wall-to-wall coverage of the not entirely unanticipated death of a 99-year-old man has come as a surprise to those coteries of courtiers whose life’s work is to fawn upon the House of Windsor and trumpet every anniversary, every birth, every engagement and of course, every death as if it is of momentous importance to the entire nation. As it pulled its entire schedule on all its domestic channels BBC2 television took a spectacular 60 per cent hit on its viewing figures.