Solar Eclipse 1999

Apparently the BBC's airborne camera was usually used for horse racing? (a gyro-stabilised one)



There's a report in the show about how they filmed it - https://youtu.be/eQWG6J6bESM?t=46m6s
(or here)

Discovery had a special on Titanic (this is from the Brazilian broadcast where they're shown as an update later in the evening local time besides the main program; Portuguese commentary with the original on the background):

It was UK Horizons who did the series I'm remembering in 1999 - Moon Landing Live - showing film of the Apollo 11 mission with commentary in the studio, featuring Peter Snow, Patrick Moore and Christopher Riley.

Channel 4 did a series on the 30th anniversary. One ep is online - more of a documentary with interviews:

Real Time Apollo - Lift Off
- youtube.com/watch?v=TCOfZjY2Bak




Feels wrong to see historic images not cropped for widescreen...

(Those programs were broadcast the month before the eclipse.)

France - TF1

Thanks to the wonders of user-uploaded VHS videos, we can now see how broadcasters in many countries showed this unique event.

In the case of TF1, uh, they didn't cover it very well imo. The French leg of the eclipse didn't pass through Paris, but they still managed to make their coverage as Paris-centric as they could. Most of the show was presented from Reims just 90 miles from Paris, and we see important coverage of the Eiffel Tower, where people failed to even see a partial eclipse in cloud. There are also segments from Fécamp on the English Channel.

And so much of the chat is just "mindless describing", of the kind favoured by breaking news anchors nowadays. They were ahead of their time!

France Télévisions - France 2

A bit more enjoyable than their competitor - unlike in the UK, both main channels put on a long show for the eclipse.

Presented from an unusual location, the Château de Malbrouck near the France/Germany/Luxembourg border. The show also had reporters and entertainment on location from Fécamp in the north, Aisne in Laon, and a park for confused animals.

At the eclipse in Malbrouck, they did something quite different, observing it in silence instead of cheering and chattering.

As you'd expect, the programme is on Dailymotion in eight parts. I'd watch part 4. It's got singing Normandy-style.

Part 1 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8ixy
Part 2 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8jfd
Part 3 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8qq9
Part 4 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8s0a
Part 5 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8see
Part 6 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8sz7 (eclipse in Fécamp)
Part 7 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8tba (eclipse at Malbrouck)
Part 8 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8ubd

Germany - ZDF

Strangely Germany's 2nd channel put their reporters in Cornwall and Reims, but didn't take foreign broadcasters' pictures too, which left the coverage with an odd 'single-camera' version of the event.

...I think I've overdosed on '90s stuff, I can't remember much else of this. Seem to recall it was a bit wacky and unplanned by German TV standards.

It looks like German TV went all-out for the eclipse, which was mostly clouded-over or rainy in the end. ARD, Pro 7, RTL, N-TV and Phoenix were all reported to be putting on shows on the day.

Austria - ORF

The national broadcaster went all-out with coverage, because the eclipse passed through the centre of the country. The Vienna newspaper had an overview of TV on the day (English/German).

In Graz, Claudia Hinz wrote, an ORF cameraman nearly fell out of a helicopter when a footboard broke off.

The national coverage isn't online: only Zeit im Bild from the morning before the eclipse.

This is from the regional Oberösterreich Heute:




Hundreds of thousands of people travelled to see the event - some interview quotes are here, presumably from Burgenland Heute:

- English: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbglv1.orf.at%2Fstories%2F381633&edit-text=&act=url
- German: http://bglv1.orf.at/stories/381633




http://www.advancedpoetx.com/SOFIN/autmap.gif
Img: http://www.advancedpoetx.com/SOFIN/sofi_at.html

Probably should've considered just how many countries had this eclipse on TV!

Not gonna make the effort with caps anymore, but

Belgium - VRT TV1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpC9_tOVnO4



A special program by the Dutch-language channel. The total eclipse did touch a small part of Belgium, and so they were live in the French-speaking town of Virton near the end of the show:

- https://youtu.be/HpC9_tOVnO4?t=1h25m33s

Hungary - MTV Magyarország

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8uRUxCjqjo



Not sure who the English-speaking guy is that they interview at the start? Includes some live footage taken from the BBC feed.

Hungary - TV2 and RTL Klub

Hungary was one of the countries where the eclipse passed right through, including at Lake Balaton. This video has coverage from two more channels, first TV2 and then RTL Klub (from 34 mins in the video).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPfVHbBYgtk

Unknown channel in Arabic

One of the "mysterious" videos I found!

The country might be Egypt: the channel doesn't appear to take any live coverage from other countries - it all seems to be done in their own studio and with their own outside camera. And there isn't actually a total eclipse, which would fit with Egypt too.

The vid was uploaded by Farouk el-Baz, the name of an Egyptian-American scientist, and I think that's him on the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvaextYvISw

Greece - ET3

Some real low-budget enthusiasts now, but hey, it's the end of the page.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6X_3vfu4ww

OVER the page, my god, we've got the HOLY GRAIL if you're in the ITV Westcountry region. HOLY GRAIL