[Newsroom]

That MHP summary of events is totally wrong about ITN.

A very young Tim Wilcox broke the news of the accident at around 1.30am

youtu.be 

Dermot Murnaghan and Nicholas Owen were on way before 5.35am because I was channel hopping. I can recall at least 2 hours of ITN coverage before they handed over to Fiona Phillips and GMTV.

Yes that summary falls into the trap that you often get of feeling they have to be dismissive/critical of ITV at all times. Channel 5 showing not just a game show but a 'cheap game show' also doesn't come off unscathed.

There was also another report that is less known in between the Tim Wilcox fronted one, and when ITN famously broke into The Chart Show

youtu.be 

It had clearly just replaced a regular news bulletin and therefore had normal Night Time continuity around it

Great find! As recalled by someone in the comments to that video you’ve just shared, ITN broke the story shortly after 12.30am or around then. The same person who made the first comment also posted some listings from that very day.

[TWO ident]

It was the first time I can remember the news being on channels 1-5 all at the same time, when that happens, you know it's something major. The only other times I can remember it happening was September 11th and July 7th as well as the deaths of the Queen Mother and Prince Philip. I guess it could have happened with events like Lockerbie and the Gulf War as well, though I would have been too young to be aware.

I can remember a couple of occasions that particularly stick out because they happened one day after another - London winning the Olympic bid, and Blair’s speech after the 7/7 attacks. On both occasions the BBC were running a News Special on BBC1 and the Daily Politics on BBC2. It seemed quite surprising all the commercial channels covered the Olympic announcement given London wasn’t expected to win, but I definitely remember it happening. 

I’m not sure if all five channels covered 9/11 live? Although it is possible as BBC2 were supposed to be showing the TUC conference so could have broken away to show live pictures.

I remember BBC Two showed parts of the rolling coverage when BBC One left for soaps in prime time.
Last time BBC Two broke in a the news before the Duke of Edinburgh was in 2015, due to a terror attack in Paris. BBC One was showing CiN.

That’s right, I remember just having CIN on in the background that evening and not finding out about the attacks until much later on.

[James2001]

I’m not sure if all five channels covered 9/11 live? Although it is possible as BBC2 were supposed to be showing the TUC conference so could have broken away to show live pictures.

They did, because I remember it from the time, I'd just got back from school and was wanting to watch the Birds of a Feather repeats BBC1 were running at the time, and it wasn't on, and flipping through the other channels just to see news- took a while for me to absorb what the news was. There might not have been a long period of time where the news was on all 5 channels (I think it fell back to just BBC1 and ITV after a while), but it was on all 5 for a period.

I have a vague memory that the TUC conference might have been suspended that day because of the events. I'm sure I remember seeing the presenters at the venue discussing what was happening in America.

[TWO ident]

I’m not sure if all five channels covered 9/11 live? Although it is possible as BBC2 were supposed to be showing the TUC conference so could have broken away to show live pictures.

They did, because I remember it from the time, I'd just got back from school and was wanting to watch the Birds of a Feather repeats BBC1 were running at the time, and it wasn't on, and flipping through the other channels just to see news- took a while for me to absorb what the news was. There might not have been a long period of time where the news was on all 5 channels (I think it fell back to just BBC1 and ITV after a while), but it was on all 5 for a period.

I have a vague memory that the TUC conference might have been suspended that day because of the events. I'm sure I remember seeing the presenters at the venue discussing what was happening in America.

Yeah when I came home from school (a little later as mum went to the car wash first) it was definitely on 4 channels, with BBC2 showing CBBC by that point I think (around 3.50) and ITN with different feeds on ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 (Channel 5 IIRC was the ITN News Channel feed). ITN did a remarkable job that day providing different coverage to its various outlets. This continued for quite a while IIRC.

Another thing that stands out is that no-one mentioned it at school. Now the news would be everywhere in minutes. Truly a different world.

[dvboy]

I remember seeing a screenshot somewhere of the TUC coverage on BBC2 with a strap inviting people to switch over to BBC1. I would assume they continued with that until CBBC, moved over from BBC1.

It's not been mentioned but I remember Channel 5 took Sky News rolling coverage on 7 July 2005.

[nwtv2003]

That’s indeed correct, now I can’t remember the full and ins and outs of it, but what I do remember was that they started The Wright Stuff at 10:30am, with the intention of keeping people updated on the news, but within 10/15 mins they handed over to Sky News for a few hours.

[Andrew]

That MHP summary of events is totally wrong about ITN.

A very young Tim Wilcox broke the news of the accident at around 1.30am

youtu.be 

Dermot Murnaghan and Nicholas Owen were on way before 5.35am because I was channel hopping. I can recall at least 2 hours of ITN coverage before they handed over to Fiona Phillips and GMTV.

Yes that summary falls into the trap that you often get of feeling they have to be dismissive/critical of ITV at all times. Channel 5 showing not just a game show but a 'cheap game show' also doesn't come off unscathed.

There was also another report that is less known in between the Tim Wilcox fronted one, and when ITN famously broke into The Chart Show

youtu.be 

It had clearly just replaced a regular news bulletin and therefore had normal Night Time continuity around it

Great find! As recalled by someone in the comments to that video you’ve just shared, ITN broke the story shortly after 12.30am or around then. The same person who made the first comment also posted some listings from that very day.

What is also interesting is that was that as that second news update from Dermot actually just took the usual news bulletin slot, was it pre-recorded and aired at a different time in other areas, as at that time there were still multiple overnight services

Looking on Wikipedia, as well as the LNN driven service, in 1997 you had the United Media service for Meridian etc, plus Yorkshire Tyne Tees apparently had their own continuity, although I’m not sure if they took the same LNN schedule, and of course Scotland would have been different

[Roger Darthwell]

25 years ago today HM The Queen made an address to the nation about the death of Princess Diana, timed to be inserted into the evening news bulletins (also, 25 years ago today Mother Teresa of Calcutta died) www.youtube.com 

[Roger Darthwell]

25 years ago today the state funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales took place, here is the full live coverage on BBC One with David Dimbleby www.youtube.com 

[James2001]

Does seem interesting that only a few days after I posted in here about the rarity of there being news coverage on all 5 channels, it's happened again.