[DTV]

Can this nonsense about broadcasters knowing way before the official announcement stop? It's not true, I believe that's an established fact. They only knew very shortly before everyone else did.

Fundamentally, as has been said before, a lot of this discussion is based on the conflation of knowing something for an absolute fact based on official confirmation and 'knowing' something is almost certainly the case based on inference. All evidence does indeed suggest that the broadcasters did not know for 100% fact until the Palace announced it, but that many people - including editorial staff at the broadcasters - had inferred that the Queen was probably dead or dying several hours earlier.

It's a bit like certain election results. There are certain constituencies that everybody knows are pretty much definitely going to go one way. But the broadcasters can't just announce those results the minute the polls have closed just because it's almost certain that, e.g. Liverpool West Derby goes Labour. ITV and Sky might sometimes declare ahead of official declaration, but even then that's only when the reporters are absolutely confident based on observing the count (and the BBC always wait until the official declaration). Things like this, you need at least some actual evidence before you can report, even if your educated inference is almost certainly right.