Darling of the ABC and former Insiders host Barrie Cassidy cannot understand why the national broadcaster is devoting so much coverage to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

He tweeted during the week that the ABC had ‘misread its audience’ and given in to rank ‘populism’.

‘If you want wall-to-wall royalty you can get it elsewhere in spades. The ABC is better when it offers an alternative to populism.’

He makes a salient point.

When it comes to history, the ABC audience is far more likely to prefer it in the form of ground-breaking episodes of Peppa Pig featuring LGBTQ+ characters.

Last week, the ABC breathlessly reported that it had just aired an episode of the popular children’s cartoon featuring a pair of co-parenting lesbian polar bears.

The ABC headline read:

‘Peppa Pig introduces same-sex couple as Penny Polar Bear’s two mummies.’

Apparently, there had been a petition signed by almost 25,000 people wanting more LGBTQ+ representation among polar bears.

‘Children watching Peppa Pig are at an impressionable age, and excluding same-sex families will teach them that only families with either a single parent or two parents of different sexes are normal,’ the petition said.

You might have expected the ABC to think that it was precisely because children watching Peppa Pig are at an impressionable age that you might want to leave all the LGBTQ+ stuff for practically every other show on television. But I digress.

Barrie Cassidy’s tweet complaining of wall-to-wall royal coverage struck a chord with many on social media. One replied:

‘It’s awful, I can’t watch it. I feel like I’m being manipulated, they’re normalising Royalist devotion … ugh JUST MAKE IT STOP!’

So true. Why spend so much time manipulating the public and normalising royalist devotion when you could be manipulating children by normalising LGBTQ+ polar bears?

The positive in all of this is, however, is that the ABC has cleared up once and for all the mystery surrounding the much-discussed decline in polar bear numbers.

Never forget. It’s their ABC. You just pay for it.

You can follow James on Twitter. You can order his new book Notes from Woketopia here.

Get 10 issues for just $10

Subscribe to The Spectator Australia today for the next 10 magazine issues, plus full online access, for just $10.

SUBSCRIBE 10 issues for $10 REGISTER 3 articles a month

Already a subscriber? Log in