[XIII]

It may interest some to know ITV News had a planned staff party that night of the Queen’s death. It was cancelled quite late in the day!

Was it a leaving do of some sorts? I assume it was able to take place at a later date.

[News Engineer]

I’ve yet to see the documentary, but if it’s right Dermot Murnaghan is claiming he got to Buckingham Palace first and so got the best spot, that’s a little bit cheeky.

For the Queen’s death all the positions were drawn out on a plan long in advance. Once different broadcasters turned up, those with allocated spaces (the UK networks, US networks, news agencies) all began to setup in their agreed positions.

So Dermot might have ensured Sky got their spot, which would have been one of the best, but if he’d have gone in the wrong place he’d soon have been moved, as would anyone taking Sky’s spot!

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Who was the first of the US networks to break the news of her being unwell that day? As I know when the news of her death broke , CNN was the first of the cable news networks to announce it, whilst ABC was the first of the three main networks to break the news (I remember when her death was announced, both ABC and NBC went into special report mode for 2.5 hours, whereas CBS was only in special report mode for an hour)

In terms of the announcement of her being unwell I think ABC got it on Good Morming America first, think NBC and CBS were a little behind I think, possibly not by much.

CNN and ABC got the announcement of her death on air very close to each other, can’t quite remember who was first. From what I remember NBC were next, CBS not long after.

CBS’ funeral coverage was much shorter than the other networks, they went back to regular programmes as the coffin was leaving London, not long after CBS Mornings would have finished anyway. ABC and NBC carried on until after the internment in Windsor.

[Ben Shatliff]

In the documentary I think both Dan Walker and Dermot Murnagham said that they knew the news was coming before the Palace announced it at 18:30

I watched the documentary yesterday and yes most media organisations including many others away from the media knew the sad news was coming well before the official announcement. 

What also struck me was the ITV News Head or Senior saying she felt a sense on that morning something may happen.

[James2001]

Let's be honest, we all knew the news was coming, even if we didn't know about the protocol. You don't suspend programmes and bring in your senior newsreader dressed in black just because the queen's ill (she'd been in hospital numerous times over the preceeding months and we never found out until afterwards- so that alone told us it was something exceptional).

[thegeek]

Yes, everything from D+1 (the day after she dies) to the end of the funeral was planned out, so that's everything from her journey back from Scotland, the proclamation, lying in state, the Kings tour of the nations etc. The TV companies had plans and resource bookings in place for a long time. 

It wasn't all 100% nailed down - I believe the BBC's plans for their studio-based non-news coverage moved around a few times. During the period where Studio B was being refurbished, they were looking at doing it in third-party studios, and I think the idea of doing it from V (and relocating the One Show to Morning Live's studio in Manchester) was a reasonably recent call.

[Orry Verducci]

I’ve yet to see the documentary, but if it’s right Dermot Murnaghan is claiming he got to Buckingham Palace first and so got the best spot, that’s a little bit cheeky.

So Dermot might have ensured Sky got their spot, which would have been one of the best, but if he’d have gone in the wrong place he’d soon have been moved, as would anyone taking Sky’s spot!

Yes he said he was walking to work, which goes past Buckingham Palace, at the time he got the call. So was only a minute or two away.

Given that he was in a public space, and this was before anything official had been setup, would they have been able to ask him to move? Obviously Sky wouldn't want to upset the Palace and would I'm sure comply with any requests, but I imagine he would have also been within his right to say "why should I" if asked to move.

In the documentary I think both Dan Walker and Dermot Murnagham said that they knew the news was coming before the Palace announced it at 18:30

So I was in playout on this day supporting our (understandably) nervous TX operator. We weren't a broadcaster who was privy to the protocol, but between us we had a couple friends who work within BBC News who unofficially kept us in the loop. We were also talking to ITV's schedulers, as we were scheduled to be on ITV1 that night, who had speculated that might change.

I was always on the understanding they like to do these announcements at two hourly intervals (e.g. 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, etc). We were told that although they hadn't been told officially, the word on the ground was that there would be news at 6pm, which sounded right to me based on my understanding of the protocol.

6pm came and went. I hung around in playout until 6:20pm, watching BBC News and Sky News on the multiviewer, and at that point declared to my colleague that "it's clearly not happening" and that "we won't hear anything until 8pm", so I was going to go home.

By the time I had got to the car the news had been announced, and as I put my key in the car radio came on to a very upset Andrew Marr on LBC much to my surprise. Thanks to that I have the surreal memory of running back in to the building and up to the top floor (where playout was located), with the national anthem blaring out around me as I did so (every TV around the building had been switched to BBC News). Not one I'll forget.

[thegeek]

Similar to Orry, I was in an MCR for a broadcaster that wasn't going to be throwing to rolling news, but was certainly going to have to change its output come the announcement. I think I was one of the only people in the engineering team who'd previously taken enough of an interest to have asked for the obituary procedure*, so by early afternoon had forwarded it on to a few people while we got the latest version from the higher-ups, and stuck BBC One up on the monitor stack. We didn't have any inside knowledge, but I did just happen to have the sound turned up at the right time to hear Huw's announcement.

I'm quite glad to have been there to see the plan swing into action - and then rapidly evolve. Adverts were dropped straight away and replaced with a generic channel promo, which was itself swiftly deemed to be inappropriately jaunty, and swapped out for some improvised captions over a static logo, and programmes were being truncated all over the place because the production teams thought it would be more appropriate to do so.

I then managed to miss out on most of the weekend's coverage by disappearing off to Amsterdam for the weekend, though IBC was quite a good place for gossip about who knew what and when.

* my very first time on the air on student radio was an hour after Princess Margaret's death was announced, so it's the kind of thing that's always been at the back of my mind.

[Orry Verducci]

I then managed to miss out on most of the weekend's coverage by disappearing off to Amsterdam for the weekend, though IBC was quite a good place for gossip about who knew what and when.

It certainly made for a very interesting IBC, although like you it meant I missed much of the coverage. It was very interesting chatting to colleagues in connectivity and outside broadcast, whose teams back home were suddenly very busy.

I did feel very sorry for our colleagues who work in news. I heard from some who had travelled out that Thursday, and got the call as soon as they arrived telling them to come back to London.

Being the first IBC after the two that COVID cancelled I know they were quite excited to go...

[newsjunkie]

As has already been said, the broadcasters were never told exactly what was happening - but were reading a lot into the official statements and the movement of the royal family.

One interesting point from ITV is that their plans had changed in recent years. For many years we had planned for a likely scenario where we would be on air with rolling coverage when the announcement came. But the decision more recently had been taken that this would not be the case and that we would only come on the air in the event of a formal announcement.

Obviously in the end coverage began several hours before the announcement. By the time we hit 6pm discussions were already beginning about what we do in the event there is no announcement. When would we drop the coverage? 7.30pm when the Evening News would usually end was considered likely.

Of course eventually the news did come at 6.30pm.

[PJamo]

Was this the event when (apologies if I'm not 100% on this) Chris Cook (or someone of similar standing in their respective organisation) were flying somewhere for a holiday when the news broke so they disembarked and immediately got on the next flight back to London?