Channel 5 praised for screening The Emoji Movie during the Queen's funeral

Channel 5 have taken an alternative approach to screening the Queen's funeral on Monday (19 September) – by showing The Emoji Movie instead, followed by Stuart Little and Ice Age.

All major networks will broadcast the late monarch's historic state funeral, including BBC, ITV and Sky.

The UK will have big screens to watch the Queen's funeral, including in London’s Hyde Park, Sheffield’s Cathedral Square, Birmingham’s Centenary Square, Carlisle’s Bitts Park, Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park and Coleraine Town Hall in Northern Ireland.

The country's cinemas will also show the funeral to bring local communities together.

Channel 5's decision to play the movie featuring James Corden and Patrick Stewart has certainly caused a divide on social media, with some criticising the move.

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However, other people turned to Twitter to praise the channel for providing family-friendly entertainment for children.

"To be fair, it's good to see them doing something like this. Most families will have 2 TVs so adults can watch it and children watch the film. It's a shame BBC aren't doing something similar with BBC3," one tweeted.

Another said they "don't understand the criticism of Channel 5 for showing The Emoji Movie during the queen’s funeral," adding: "What are kids of families who don’t have paid TV/streaming supposed to do otherwise, sit and watch people in suits look overly sad for six hours?"

"Channel 5 deserve a lot of respect for this," a third remarked. "Airing an entire day's worth of kid and family-friendly content to give us a break from wall-to-wall bleakness is a great move."

Meanwhile, another reiterated: "Channel 5 coming in strong for the people with kids who don’t want to watch the funeral".

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