BBC issues sort-of-apology for Graham Norton graphic over Doctor Who

We're glad it wasn't just us. On Saturday, we wrote and uploaded an open letter to the BBC, specifically, whoever decided that it'd be a great idea to supplant an animated cartoon Graham Norton on Doctor Who's face come the big finale of The Time Of Angels. You can find the letter here.

It seems from the comments that post received and the complaints that have subsequently flooded into the BBC that we weren't alone. And over at the BBC News site, it's now run a story that has a comment from ‘a BBC spokesman'.

It reads: "We apologise for the timing of Saturday night's trail."

It does not, you'll notice, read: "We apologise for the timing of Saturday night's trail, and also agree to stop promoting other shows before the credits have rolled on the one that you happen to be watching."

It also missed out: "In hindsight, we understand that we are the BBC, and thus one of the advantages people expect of us when paying their licence fee is for our programmes to be advert-free."

Seriously: are we heading towards a point where the BBC will put an ad-break in the middle of its own shows just to promote more of them?

We're delighted that the BBC has noticed the timing was off with its trail on Saturday, and that it seems to appreciate that running an animated Graham Norton across the last scenes of a drama isn't the best way to escalate tension.

And to be clear, as someone rightly noted in the comments on our letter, this isn't about Graham Norton, Over The Rainbow, or even Doctor Who, in the greater scheme of things. It's about adverts popping up where they don't belong, and in this specific case, damaging the tension of a key moment of a tightly scripted drama. Such adverts need to be stopped.

Here's the ‘apology' at BBC News.