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Days That Shook the World

The death of Diana (May 2004)

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AS
Asa Admin
Just been watching the one showing on BBC Two now about the death of Diana. It included a very brief clip of Martyn Lewis in the newsroom and the "News Report" slide although bizarrely with the top-left BBC1 logo blacked out (not very well as the background slide wasn't wholly black). Also mentioned BBC1 stayed on the air showing BBC World News for the first time with a couple of clips but they were all split-screen '24'-style and blown up to 16:9. Actually, that's probably why they got rid of the BBC1 logo...

http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/diana.html still sends a shiver down my spine!
MT
MrTomServo
Quote:
In the early hours, the BBC were quite happy to play this interview with eye witness Michael Soloman sourced from CNN. For some reason they cut the part at the end where he says "Baba Booey!". As Private Eye reports, this is the catch phrase of American Shock Jock Howard Stern who encourages his listeners to phone CNN with bogus testimony of breaking news stories.


Strangely, that's really the only part of the evening that I remember. It happened at about 20.55 Pacific Time that day. That, and the super on CNN changing very abruptly from "Princess Diana injured in accident" to "Princess Diana dead" before the anchor (who I believe was Bernard Shaw, though I can't recall for certain) had a chance to even speak the sentence.

Of course, television wasn't nearly as affected in the US ...

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RO
rob Founding member
Asa posted:
Just been watching the one showing on BBC Two now about the death of Diana. It included a very brief clip of Martyn Lewis in the newsroom and the "News Report" slide although bizarrely with the top-left BBC1 logo blacked out (not very well as the background slide wasn't wholly black). Also mentioned BBC1 stayed on the air showing BBC World News for the first time with a couple of clips but they were all split-screen '24'-style and blown up to 16:9. Actually, that's probably why they got rid of the BBC1 logo...

http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/diana.html still sends a shiver down my spine!


Indeed it does Asa. Can anyone remember what film was interrupted for the news report?
GS
Gavin Scott Founding member
They named the movie in the documentary, but I don't recall it.
DE
deejay
It's one of those things I'm sure I used to know ... but now can't remember ! All I can think of is "Red Corner", but that was the file interrupted on BBC ONE by one of those pesky power failures! Can't find the name of the film on the web either ,,, but will keep looking ... for my peace of mind if nothing else.
:-(
A former member
It began with a B and sounded Spanish / Italian: I actually videoed the program so will go back and check
7N
7 Network
According to the Radio Times it was "Borsalino".
FU
fusionlad Founding member
In danger of going a bit off-topic. But I remember the night so well. I had just come in from a night of clubbing. For some bizzare reason I was watching Sky News - never really watched it back then. The 'injured' reports came in, and I was flicking between Sky and BBC One.

Sky News were interviewing someone on the phone, before they cut to Martin Stanford, who paused, looked very uncomfortable, then announced that Diana had died. You could almost see the tears in his eyes.

BBC World followed about 5 or 10 mins later if I recall correctly.
DE
deejay
7 Network posted:
According to the Radio Times it was "Borsalino".


Thank you ... that's it ! Was going mad ... ISTR that it was interrupted twice for news reports about the accident, then following the end of the film BBC ONE joined BBC WORLD for the first time ever rather than closing down for the night. The other BBC channels joined BBC WORLD when the official announcement of Diana's death happened and BBC WORLD sustained all networks until 0630 when the domestic BBC News studio took over. The BBC ONE control room produced a junction at the end of BBC WORLD's coverage and before Martin Lewis in the National News studio took over. The junction consisted simply of the "Family Ident" and announcement. This whole sequence can be seen at MHP in the form of stills and Real Audio captures.
MO
Moz
The thing which got me most was the coverage on Radio 1. They played a continuous loop of some really haunting music for the whole day - anyone know what it was and if there are any clips of Radio 1's coverage anywhere?
FU
fusionlad Founding member
Moz posted:
The thing which got me most was the coverage on Radio 1. They played a continuous loop of some really haunting music for the whole day - anyone know what it was and if there are any clips of Radio 1's coverage anywhere?


It really was quite strange. The excellent (IMO) Kevin Greening took over from the Mark & Lard breakfast show, becuase their humour was deemed inapropriate for 2 weeks .
AS
Asa Admin
fusionlad posted:
It really was quite strange. The excellent (IMO) Kevin Greening took over from the Mark & Lard breakfast show, becuase their humour was deemed inapropriate for 2 weeks .

I think the event knocked the stuffing out of CEEFAX for a while too with some sections also deemed inappropriate. I missed my daily dose of Chatterbox...

Does anyone have a video of the family ident in action that day? I taped it but in my infinite wisdom wiped many presentation gems from over the years from my tapes (or "Signs" and "Signs 2" as I labelled the tapes because that's what I called idents, presentation et al!) I had a tape "Asa's tape - the end of Going Live" (god knows what else was on it) and recorded over it with a whole 6hrs of ITV Nighttime's "A Night Down Under" from the mid-90's. Mad

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