BBC Scotland has been hit with hundreds of complaints over supposed "anti-independence" bias during their recent Leaders' Debate, official figures reveal.
Hundreds of viewers wrote to the broadcaster saying the programme, aired live last month, was slanted in favour of the three pro-Union parties and their leaders.
Apart from the BBC's significant focus on the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, the Glasgow-made election show, hosted by Scotland editor Sarah Smith, received most complaints by the BBC across the UK of any broadcast during the monitoring period from March 29 to April 11.
Figures collated by the BBC reveal that 277 complaints were received about the programme broadcast on BBC One on March 30.
A spokesman for the BBC said they "reject completely any suggestion of bias".
The BBC News Special on the Duke of Edinburgh's death on April 9 received 433 complaints reltating to a reference to 'Indian bride' in what was regarded as a negative obituary to the Prince.
A News Special on the Duke the following day received 119 complaints saying it was inappropriate to comment over the 41 gun salute. The same day 130 complaints were made that the presenters on BBC One's Breakfast were not dressed appropriately to mark the Queen's husband's passing.
The near blanket coverage and interruption to scheduling received more than 118,000 complaints.
The BBC said: "Between 29 March – 11 April 2021, BBC Audience Services (Stage 1) received a total of 110,053 complaints about programmes. 118,711 complaints in total were received at Stage 1.
"The higher than usual level of correspondence this fortnight was driven by reaction to the amount of coverage given to the death of the Duke of Edinburgh which accounted for 104,010 complaints during this period. At time of publication the overall total was 109,741."
In Scotland, the BBC's Leaders' Debate saw the First Minister and Greens' co-leader Lorna Slater, on the independence side, took on three Unionist party leaders: Douglas Ross from the Scottish Tories, Anas Sarwar from Scottish Labour and Willie Rennie from the Scottish LibDems.
A BBC Scotland spokesman said: “Leaders’ Debates inevitably elicit strong views but we reject completely any suggestion of bias.
"Throughout the debate we ensured that each of the party leaders was given a fair and appropriate amount of time to make their case.
"We always place the highest value on due impartiality and accuracy, and we apply these principles to our reporting of all issues with rigorous editorial standards applied across all of our output.”
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