How the BBC broke Diana's death

Just a note for those of you new to the BBC catalogue thing - if you click 'reveal extra detail' there's a very detailed running order and shot list (presumably more so than usual on this occasion, given the high profile.)

The early stuff (6am onwards) was, as I recall, Martyn Lewis in the studio (again) and a rolling 30 minute series of packages including timelines and maps of the route, some VT of the preparations including the crowd barriers being setup and people waiting overnight, and so on.

My main memories of the day itself include the fantastic view they got from the studio in front of Westminster Abbey, plus the fact that David Dimbleby had a little switch on his left which he could use to silence his microphone, and at least twice he forgot to switch it on again as they cut to him.

I'd quite like to see a rerun of the Golden Jubilee coverage - wonder if we'll ever get that..

Which was the day before the funeral on the 6th. She died in the evening, so the news was still relatively fresh.

I've got the newsflash on VHS. It was transmitted on BBC1 at 7.30 on the night before Diana's funeral.

The Time The Place that morning was dedicated to Diana ("because no-one we spoke to felt like talking about anything else.") I remember thinking how dated the set looked even in 1997.

I happened upon the initial BBC newsflash whilst surfing that night. Thought it was part of the Learning Zone at first and briefly switched over. Sky News were still running a sports report at the time. When they came back to the presenter (a young guy with slick curly hair, not seen him on TV in ages) he stammered for a bit, hastily threw to commercial (featuring a promo proclaiming Sky News "First with the news" - ha!) and when it ended Stanford was in the chair.

Just a guess: former Gus Honeybun sidekick David Fitzgerald? I'm pretty sure I recall him mentioning breaking Diana's death on Sky News in a press interview. He can now be found on BBC Radio Devon.

Well this Saturday morning coming, BBC Parliament are screening the entire funeral. Starts at around 8.20am and finishes well into the afternoon.

How SKy News broke the news of her death: http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,91218-1281860,.html

You can also see how MSNBC broke the story and covered it on this page
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20525794/

Its in the video section, scroll down a bit.