Saturday's episode of The Masked Dancer began with an announcement to viewers that the show was filmed before the death of Queen Elizabeth II, as people at home were divided on ITV's decision to show it.
News was delivered to the nation just after 6.30pm on Thursday that Queen Elizabeth II had died at Balmoral a few hours earlier, at the age of 96, as several senior members of the Royal Family headed to Scotland to be with her. Buckingham Palace announced the death of Her Majesty in a statement which read: 'The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral and return to London in the morning."
Julie Etchingham made the announcement of The Queen's passing live on air to ITV viewers and, since then the broadcaster has made significant changes to its schedule, with the likes of This Morning, Loose Women and The Chase all pulled on Friday and Good Morning Britain airing on Saturday in a huge break with tradition.
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ITV has also suspended all adverts until further notice but on Saturday evening there was a return to somewhat normal programming, meaning that The Masked Dancer did air and was preceded by Ninja Warrior UK, although both airing at different times to advertised.
And, perhaps pre-empting any criticism from viewers, before opening tiles rolled on The Masked Dancer, an ITV announcer said: "Now it's all new The Masked Dancer. This evening's programme was recorded before the sad news of Her Majesty The Queen's passing."
A few viewers did take aim at ITV's decision to go show The Masked Dancer, with one tweeting: "A cannot believe @ITV are dishing up Ninja Warrior & the Masked Dancer whilst the country is officially in mourning..," with another reacting: "Absolutely disgusting."
However, others were in favour of ITV going ahead with the programme, with one posting: "I thought it bad that the BBC had Four channels on thursday evening all showing the same thing. Then ITV, channel Four and Five different but same subject. ITV are right to put something different on."
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