11-09-2022, 07:51 PM
That first statement was certainly set up to subtly imply she was dying ("comfortable"!) - not to mention the implicit signals from the amassed family members at Balmoral.
There was a similar implicit signal with Diana (Robin Cook's flight out of Manila as part of a diplomatic tour of SE Asia - the time zone difference meaning it was daytime there - being grounded per protocol of no government member being in the air at the time of a royal death announcement), but I think in that case there'd been an explicit embargoed announcement to media via the journalists covering that diplomatic business.
What strikes me as interesting is that ITV and 5 both went open-ended at 1700 and no sooner (and 4 not at all until the announcement, but their remit makes it sensible for them to be the outlier). I wonder how those decisions on when to break normal programming were made.
There was a similar implicit signal with Diana (Robin Cook's flight out of Manila as part of a diplomatic tour of SE Asia - the time zone difference meaning it was daytime there - being grounded per protocol of no government member being in the air at the time of a royal death announcement), but I think in that case there'd been an explicit embargoed announcement to media via the journalists covering that diplomatic business.
What strikes me as interesting is that ITV and 5 both went open-ended at 1700 and no sooner (and 4 not at all until the announcement, but their remit makes it sensible for them to be the outlier). I wonder how those decisions on when to break normal programming were made.