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Operation London Bridge: the death of the Queen

Includes interesting info on how the media would respond (March 2017)

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VM
VMPhil
Always interesting how these major events can impact things you wouldn't otherwise think about. I've read a similar story about how scheduling changes after 9/11 led to an increase in viewing figures for BBC's daytime soap Doctors which was supposedly on the verge of being cancelled in its original timeslot. Don't know how true that story is though.
LL
London Lite Founding member

London station XFM launched on the Monday morning after the event. That caused them to completely
rethink their first week's broadcasting !

Their test transmissions were initially fairly minimal - ambient music or effects or something, but by that weekend they were running full tests of music and promos. They were pulled on the Sunday and it returned to the original ones for the day


There was also a live test show from Jarvis Cocker of Pulp.
IS
Inspector Sands
Always interesting how these major events can impact things you wouldn't otherwise think about. I've read a similar story about how scheduling changes after 9/11 led to an increase in viewing figures for BBC's daytime soap Doctors which was supposedly on the verge of being cancelled in its original timeslot. Don't know how true that story is though.

Sounds like (I think) Are You Being Served, which got an unplanned repeat because of what happened at the Munich Olympics. It got better ratings and got a second series
:-(
A former member
Always interesting how these major events can impact things you wouldn't otherwise think about. I've read a similar story about how scheduling changes after 9/11 led to an increase in viewing figures for BBC's daytime soap Doctors which was supposedly on the verge of being cancelled in its original timeslot. Don't know how true that story is though.

Sounds like (I think) Are You Being Served, which got an unplanned repeat because of what happened at the Munich Olympics. It got better ratings and got a second series


Close. AYBS Pilot was made and the BBC said no thanks so put it on a shelf, Munich Olympics happened and there was nothing to fill so there went to that shelf and had no other choice and put AYBS out and it was a hit with the viewers. That how it got another 5eps for the first series.
EL
elmarko
That is remarkable. It's like the butterfly effect
MA
Markymark
Always interesting how these major events can impact things you wouldn't otherwise think about. I've read a similar story about how scheduling changes after 9/11 led to an increase in viewing figures for BBC's daytime soap Doctors which was supposedly on the verge of being cancelled in its original timeslot. Don't know how true that story is though.

Sounds like (I think) Are You Being Served, which got an unplanned repeat because of what happened at the Munich Olympics. It got better ratings and got a second series


Close. AYBS Pilot was made and the BBC said no thanks so put it on a shelf, Munich Olympics happened and there was nothing to fill so there went to that shelf and had no other choice and put AYBS out and it was a hit with the viewers. That how it got another 5eps for the first series.


So Wiki says (if true) it's quite remarkable. What a very odd choice for a 'standby programme' given the event that caused the gap to be filled, but with nothing else.....
I can just remember a long commentary by David Coleman, over a single long zoom live shot of the Israeli apartment block. I don't recall AYBS that night, but I do remember the first proper episode, it was on the night of a school parents' evening, and they hadn't received a glowing report about me Confused
:-(
A former member
This information NEVER come from wiki.... its come for the horse mouth. https://youtu.be/SyupsaprPE4?t=908
IS
Inspector Sands
Yes, it's a bit of television folklaw not just something made up on Wikipedia.

I wouldn't have thought it was in the night it happened, just filled a gap in the schedules where the sport was supposed to be afterwards (I assume some events were cancelled?)

Not sure it was a standby as such, but being a comedy playhouse it was a one-off so ideal to fill a hole
BH
BillyH Founding member
I'm sure there kept a normal service so kids and teenages had a service. Same with her funeral ch4 had kids programmes etc.


Channel 4 faded out the cartoons and started showing the funeral too, I remember being majorly annoyed by this as an eight year old at the time who didn't know or care who this Diana person was!

Here's the planned schedule of all five channels on the funeral date, from what I remember Ch4's coverage was interrupted around the time Prince Cinders was on (which does seem like an odd choice given the death of a Princess), so around noon. We turned the TV off soon after so I'm not sure if Ch4 ever went back to cartoons afterwards.

EDIT: Indeed it's Youtube to the rescue who have some Ch4 pres from earlier in the day, which busts a myth I've thought for years that they switched to the funeral unplanned, when in fact it was planned right from the start of the day (but not in TV listings, so still fairly last-minute). I do seem to recall an abrupt fade out of a cartoon midway through, but that might be false memories at work there.

Last edited by BillyH on 18 March 2017 12:47am
NW
nwtv2003
I remember Right To Reply the week after that happened and they had so many complaints for showing children's programmes, instead of Channel 4 News coverage of the funeral. In my opinion Channel 4 did the right thing at the time as coverage of the funeral was saturated on every other channel, the really young were rightly given a choice.

From memory the Queen mother's funeral was a different affair as it didn't happen until ten days after she died. BBC1 and ITV ran coverage of it but they were finished by about 2.30pm, I recall BBC1 showed an episode of Dad's Army between the funeral and CBBC. I vaguely remember they also showed part of the funeral on CBBC and I think CBeebies, but it wasn't for long, it could have possibly been for a minute's silence.
RO
robertclark125
I felt Channel 4 did the right thing, and provided an alternative for kids who didn't want to watch the funeral, or perhaps didn't fully understand what was happening.

Worth mentioning as the clips will show, there were no adverts in between the programmes.
MA
Markymark
I felt Channel 4 did the right thing, and provided an alternative for kids who didn't want to watch the funeral, or perhaps didn't fully understand what was happening.

Worth mentioning as the clips will show, there were no adverts in between the programmes.


There were no ads I seem to recall within C4 News during the entire first week, and I don't recall many ads on Sky News either ?

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