the palace has just issued this statement, it says the queen died peacefully at balmoral this afternoon. monarchy, to begin work. they have been turning up in their thousands, morning, another chilly start saw blankets handed out, along with wristbands,

across south east london to the palace of westminster. the view from the long walk, recorded by thousands of devotees. but of ordinary people, who came to say goodbye. there was praise for many quarters for the technical and editorial quality of the output, with libby wilson writing on monday... others picked out the live streaming of the queen's lying in state at westminster hall for a particular praise. stefan was one of them, e—mailing a huge thank you...

elsewhere, though, there was commentary from presenters during some of the live events of the past fortnight. a lot of commentary. the queen is borne to the abbey, where she was married in1947, crowned in 1953, where she attended royal weddings and funerals. the music already sounding through the historic cathedral, the reverend callum mcleod the minister of saint giles will be — conducting the service. lynn ridgway contacted us last week to say... this was echoed on monday, the day of the funeral.

two of the many viewers who contacted us over the past couple of weeksjoin me now. with me in the studio is richard, interim senior controller news content for bbc news. richard, first, at these particular moments of music and ceremony immediately around the coffin going in, people arriving, the music starting. many people felt that the bbc commentary got it wrong and was too obtrusive. can you understand that? ithink, actually, you know, we made quite a play out of not doing too much commentary. huw edwards actually said it on the programme itself, that we were going to allow a lots of the proceedings to speak for themselves, really. there were such amazing pictures and amazing sound throughout the day. but there is a place i think also for commentaryjust

to provide context and information and to bring the feel of the event even closer for audiences. you understand why some people perhaps thought the bbc got it wrong on some of that? i think these are always judgements, aren't they? and people will have different views on them, and if you are doing commentary on events, you're making a judgment on a live broadcast as it goes along. i thought in the main the commentary was respectful and got it right. let's hear what our viewers want to talk about. susan, tell us why you contacted us. what was your concern about the coverage? i realise that a death of the monarch has not happened during the era of television before in this country, and so it is probably difficult to know how to play it, but what perturbed me was the length of time that was devoted in the news section of broadcasting to the queen's death and funeral arrangements, to the exclusion, virtually, of every other topic. i found this extremely puzzling. fair enough, the first day, the first two days, yes,

it was an overwhelming shock for people. i kept on expecting a section to be announced in other news, because they were vital things going on in the world such as the energy crisis, war in ukraine, natural disasters in pakistan, but we heard nothing, even up until monday and tuesday, and then a little bit crept in, and i felt this was excessive. andrea, what about you? i absolutely agree. my thoughts are exactly the same as susan's. i that's why i wrote in. as an example, on friday- the 16th, the six o'clock news lasted an hour, and there was less than 15 minutes devoted to other news and sport, i the rest of it was devoted to royal events and various coverages - associated with that. 0k, thank you. that's a very specific concern. why, so many days after,

was there not a better balance with the scale of news that was going on in the world? well, ithink, you know, this was a major news story. there's no question about that. i think we were reflecting the overwhelming interest of our audience, and we saw that, in terms of the audience figures that came to us online and you can see it in the television figures, more than 30 million watching the funeral. there were events going on in the days after the death that we needed to report on, but, you know, we did report on other news as well. the concern was proportion, wasn't it? it was such a small proportion of bulletins days after. not always. i mean, we lead with ukraine story, which obviously developed and we had our international editor, jeremy bowen, days was the queen's death and the reaction to her death around

the uk and the world. susan, you had a specific concern about the tone and the kind of emotional approach of interviews, didn't you? yes. lam, in fact, a reasonable monarchist, for various reasons, but emotion doesn't really come into my preference. i would prefer to live under a monarchy than a republic. it's not based on emotion, its based on appreciation of history and continuity and things like that. i felt there was too much emphasis, whenever people were interviewed, on how they felt, trying to get emotion out of the situation. and i don't always think this is healthy or particularly interesting or helpful. andrea, you raised a question about the coverage of the queue, didn't you? yes, because i think it's very- newsworthy that there was a queue of that extraordinary length, i that definitely deserves to be reported in the news, _ but i don't think that we needed to ask so many people -

in the queue to be interviewed and ask their opinion. to me, that is not news. that's just people's opinions. there should have been more actual news about the good things - going on in the world. pakistan wasn't mentioned, again, for instance, - for quite a number of days. the brazilian elections that are coming up in october. | now, if bolsonaro gets in again as president, i this will have serious consequences for the rain forest, _ and therefore the planet. i don't know why that hasn't been mentioned, for instance, - by bbc on the television news. andrea, again, going back to the issue about proportion, which is clearly a big concern for some viewers. overall, it seems there are those who felt that the bbc�*s tone, perhaps especially over the course of this period, had a hint of north korea about it, overly mournful with republican sentiment almost entirely absent from the airwaves. in that sense, it was

hardly impartial. i don't think we were overly mournful. i think, you know, as the news broke, you know, it's important to have the right tone, and i think we need to be respectful and reflect what a lot of the audiences were feeling, which was shock and sadness. a degree of remembrance, as time goes on. i think the tone then develops and evolves in the days afterwards and i think it became a more news type coverage. including, you know, nada tawfik, speaking injamaica, to a lot of young people there with a lot of sceptical views. we reflected sceptical views in this country as well. but i think overwhelmingly, and what we have seen and heard

to remember somebody who had been a major part of uk life and to do that in a way that, you know, reflected all the emotions that the audience were feeling. richard, thank you. thank especially to our viewers, susan and andrea. thank you both. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news on tv, radio, online and social media, e—mail us... or you can find us on twitter... you can call us... and do have a look at previous interviews on our website. that's all from us and we will be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. hello. the autumn equinox happened on friday, and saturday is going to be ourfirst full day of autumn.

the skies are pretty clear at the moment, and the weekend, how's it looking? actually, not too bad. there will be a few showers around, but predominantly sunny spells. so, this is what it looks like out there right now. yes, a few showers around, but generally clear across most of the uk through the early hours of saturday, and the temperatures ranging from close to freezing in the scottish glens, around ten in liverpool and i2 degrees in the south. now, recently in the south east, it has been pretty cloudy and wet because of a stubborn weather front, we'll see showers developing — quite well scattered across england and wales. but in scotland and northern ireland, it should be

a predominantly dry day. here, temperatures will range from 12 degrees in the northern isles, 16 in glasgow, in the south, still around 18. that was saturday, this is sunday's weather forecast. a lot of sunshine, particularly across england and wales, we'll have a look at that in a second. blowing at hurricane force, and waves around coastal areas front.

and edinburgh probably as well, and cardiff, mid—teens expected and similar values there in london. have a good weekend.

on whether tojoin the russian federation.