[Omnipresent]

I remember going to bed on Saturday night having watched the initial coverage on CNN where first reports said that Diana had broken her arm and the main discussion, with Tom Cruise on the phone, was whether news magazines should buy paparazzi photos of the accident.

I woke up on Sunday morning, turned on Radio 1 to hear solemn music.  It was only when I then turned on BBC1 to see Martin Lewis presenting with the onscreen graphic 1961-1997 did it register what had happened. 

I had just finished my summer job before going back to university so spent a lot of time watching and listening to coverage in the week after Diana's death.  Radio 1 handled it well, particularly Kevin Greening at Breakfast. 

I'm not sure if it's urban legend or not, but it was claimed that on Sunday morning a presenter on Kiss 100 remarked "Shame about Di copping it" over Roni Size.  Atlantic 252 didn't suspend programming on the Sunday, but did for the day of the funeral.

There was a brief compilation on YouTube, now deleted, of Good Morning America and Today on the Monday after Diana's death.  ABC sent Charles Gibson to present on location from Kensington Palace.  NBC sent Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw, with Katie presenting from outside Buckingham Palace for Today and Tom near Tower Bridge for Nightly News.  This style of presentation live on location from the "scene" (even if nothing is happening there in actuality) was of course to come to the UK. 

The cult of the news anchor was very much in evidence with Matt Lauer going on how this was Katie's first day back from holiday and how sad it was for them to welcome her back in such circumstances.

On DVR recording, I purchased my first Panasonic HD/DVD recorder in 2003 - it was relatively expensive at the time at £650.  I do look back and wonder why I didn't record more TV onto VHS when I had my own video recorder.  I think it was partly due to the space VHS tapes took up, and not anticipating they could eventually be shared online. 

It was also generally a very clunky medium with timer recordings not always working, other members of the household accidentally taping over stuff, tapes getting chewed by the VCR etc.