Ambridge flood disaster

[Gob]

The BBC faced a deluge of complaints from listeners over its bizarre online coverage of a fictional flood disaster in The Archers.



The Radio 4 drama's village of Ambridge, based in the fictional West Midlands county of Borsetshire, was flooded in the latest sensational storyline. Accompanying the show were live minute-by-minute updates of the floods on the BBC website, including weather forecasts and 'breaking news' headlines - but listeners said the graphics were 'insulting'. This week's episodes of The Archers have followed events taking place over one day of severe rainfall in Ambridge, with the drama building throughout the day as the River Am burst its banks. The BBC put out fake tweets and warnings from the Environment Agency, as farmland around the fictional village became inundated with water - mirroring the flooding of the Somerset Levels this time last year. The rolling coverage included maps and graphics to help listeners understand what was happening, but some listeners said visual aids 'insulted their intelligence'.



Some listeners added that they could not understand what was going on because of the loud background noise of rainfall and heavy winds. Echoing the floods in Somerset last year, the BBC live coverage reported farmers rapidly trying to protect their land and even linked to a real-life account of floods in Worcester. Under a 'breaking news' headline, the online update said a character on the programme was given CPR.



In other developments on the Radio 4 drama, 16-year-old character Phoebe Aldridge went missing but was later found, and Rob Titchener was injured as he saved three people from flooded stables. The rolling updates on the BBC website included a video forecast by Midlands Today weather presenter Rebecca Wood, who warned people to be wary of floodwater and severe winds. Many listeners were unimpressed by the programme's online coverage, with some taking to forums to brand it 'insulting' and confusing.



One fan wrote: 'It would 'help' me to feel I was regarded as an adult who knows this is all fantasy, that the residents of Ambridge do not exist, that they are not actually glugging about in the Am's excess water, rather than be told at the end of the episode that tweets and blogs about the flood from Ambridge residents can be read/heard.
'Cannot stand this cross over between fiction and reality, the fiction should be strong enough to stand in its own right and not need these add-on insults to intelligence.'

[Long Run]

Where can we send money to help?

[Daisy]

I haven't laughed so much in ages as I did at the Ambridge Apocalypse.

[MajGenl.Meade]