  The mixing of the doorway components of a giant resonance (GR) due to the
interaction via common decay channels influences significantly the distribution
of the multipole strength and the energy spectrum of the decay products of the
GR. The concept of the partial widths of a GR becomes ambiguous when the mixing
is strong. In this case, the partial widths determined in terms of the $K$- and
$S$-matrices must be distinguished. The photoemission turns out to be most
sensitive to the overlapping of the doorway states. At high excitation
energies, the interference between the doorway states leads to a restructuring
towards lower energies and apparent quenching of the dipole strength.
