Massive explosions at Hemel Hempstead fuel depot

Also interesting that it seems that they do the National Weather in the London Tonight studio.

If they did have that angle at the start it would look like the ITV National Weather looked when it first started!

As expected, Alastair is in Hemel for tonight's LT, with Jonathan Wills in the studio.

Some interesting stats in a Media Guardian report ... BBC News had over 6 thousand email with images or video .. and News 24 beat Sky in terms of viewers ...
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1665609,00.html
Copy below
BBC News received more than 6,500 emails containing pictures and video footage of the Buncefield oil depot explosion on Sunday.
The deluge of emails from eye witnesses, which began just minutes after the blast, sets a new record for emails sent to the BBC in the aftermath of a dramatic event.

After the London bombings on 7 July the BBC's yourpics@bbc.co.uk site received around 1,000 images and mobile clips from the public.

But the blaze at the Hertfordshire depot on Sunday morning generated an unprecedented amount of material from "civilian journalists" taking the reporter's role in to their own hands.

The first picture came into the BBC at 6.19am, minutes after the initial explosion, with the first mobile phone video footage sent in at 6.23am. Many of the 6,500 emails sent to the yourpics site contained multiple images and video clips from mobile phones and digital cameras.

Pete Clifton, the head of BBC News Interactive, said: "The range of material we received from our readers was absolutely extraordinary. "Video, still pictures and emails poured in from the moment the blast happened, and it played a central part in the way we reported the unfolding events." Half a million unique users (525,808) accessed clips and footage on Sunday via the BBC's online news video service, News Player. The figure is second only to number of requests for clips on 7 July.

The largest number of requests was for live footage streamed online and a news package by special correspondent Gavin Hewitt. In all, there were more than a quarter of a million requests for material that had been sent in by members of the public. The morning's events also generated an increase in television viewing figures at the BBC. Across Sunday, BBC News 24 achieved its highest daily reach of the year with 4.7 million viewers, a 2.1% share of the audience. Sky News reached 4.1 million viewers, a 1.8% share. BBC News 24's breakfast broadcast that was simulcast on BBC1 peaked with an audience of 2 million viewers as many who had been woken by the blast miles away turned on the TV for breaking news. Later in the day, the main bulletins showed an increase in viewing figures - the early evening bulletin was watched by 5.6 million and the Ten O'Clock News achieved 6 million.

well yes - that's how CSO works. But I agree it's nice although would be hard live I believe.

Well it looks like it's ladies night tonight with both Natasha and Mary presenting live from Hemel Hempstead.

It has to be said - Natasha did a great job. Good to see Mary out and about.

Yeah, if regionals your thing.

What "region" does Hemel Hempsted actually fall in - I noticed earlier on the ITV News Channel they had someone from Angila covering it.

[quote="Andrew"]

They always did, certainly the case when LT was produced by LNN at the South Bank

Well the Hemel Hempsted transmitter carries BBC 1 and ITV 1 London

Because of the closure of the M1 it has been difficult to get reporters to the scene. On BBC LONDON they said they had to turn back. So it may be easier for other regions such as Anglia to cover the story, as it just falls outside of their region. Another reason could also be because of the close proximity of the Anglia region to the scene, the fire has an impact on their region too.

I'm originally from Hemel, my parents still live there (2 miles from the blast) and I'm going back for a holiday on boxing day.

Hemel gets BBC & ITV London although you can recieve Anglia pretty well.

I live in Jersey now so having the 24 hour news channels covering it was great for keeping up to date with what is happening - having family so close it really helps to be constantly up to date.

I'm just glad this happened on a Sunday and not a weekday when there would have been a LOT more people about - most of my aunts and uncles work in the offices and warehouses around the facility.

Have any of the regional stations done extra coverage at all, say dropping network or regional programming for regional news specials?

Have to say that I'm astonished that nobody has been killed.