BBC Royal Documentary Shelved After Prince Charles’ Lawyers Intervene

A BBC documentary that was set to look into the tactics and response of Prince Charles‘ PR team following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 has been postponed after an intervention from lawyers representing the royal family, the Radio Times reports. 

The first episode of Reinventing the Royals was set to broadcast in the U.K. Jan. 4 on BBC2, but James Harding, the head of BBC news and current affairs, made the decision to postpone after the broadcaster received a letter from legal representatives of Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

The BBC is also separately understood to be having issues getting clearance for archival footage featuring members of the royal family.

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Reinventing the Royals promised to examine in-depth the strategy employed by Prince Charles’ PR team, headed by his former spin doctor Mark Bolland, in the time after Diana’s death. Bolland hoped to boost the prince’s public appeal and win public approval for Charles’ relationship with Camilla and drafted in Prince William and Prince Harry as part of the campaign, dubbed “Operation Mrs PB” by palace insiders (Camilla was known as Camilla Parker Bowles before marrying Charles in 2005).  

The documentary was written and presented by the former editor of the BBC’s Panorama program, Steve Hewlett. 

The BBC said it was delaying broadcast “until later in the new year while a number of issues including the use of archive footage are resolved.”

“Scheduling is a matter for the BBC,” said a royal communications spokesman, quoted by The Guardian. 

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