Pope's Death

At the beginning of the week I remember reading an artical saying that all the shops/businesses (whatever) in the area were making money, by leasing their upstairs areas to various TV companies to use as temporary studio's. I figured that's what BBC were using, particularly when we had a couple of minutes of wavering wall action at the right hand side of the studio - definately temporary.

Do you mean the sides going backwards to make it box-like? If so then no. It appeared from the way it was animating (the edges weren't vanishing when it spun) that they'd sort of cut out a hole in the main programme and keyed the ticker in underneath so that the tabs were cut off.

In that they DID do that, as when the programme finished the ticker spun off and there was a long black ticker-shaped box which someone eventually remembered to fade off.

Any captures of the N24 graphics?

No Ballet used on BBC ONE Yorks and Lincs ahead of the six but was it used to link into the News Special or did it continue straight onto Breakfast? Was there any Breakfast ending titles?

Yes, it was used, straight out of Breakfast, no promos, into Ballet and into News special...

I didn't really see the point in having an ident as Natasha said practically the same thing as the BBC ONE announcer...

I didn't see though what was shown on News 24 while Ballet was going out on BBC1 - It wouldn'tve been a countdown as it wasn't the top of the hour.

Philip Hayton said "Good morning, this is BBC News 24. Now we join Huw Edwards for coverage of the Requiem Mass of Pope John Paul II" - or something similar.

Jon Sopel's flagship report of the morning's events used on the One News, and presumably again on Six, was one of the most beautifully composed reports I have ever seen. This is really what the BBC does best - slow, reflective reports, using images as much as the voiceover.
His editor used lots of long silences, periods of atmos sound, and the most emotive shots of the events, all magnificently assembled with care and dedication.

The audio was flawless, and the script informative yet dignified - Sopel's voice being just perfect.
A really wonderful piece of television - love to see it again

I don't have access to ITN, but I did channel hop across BBC World, CNN, Sky and CBS.

By far the best - in all aspects (lighting / sound / commentary / presenter suitability) was Sky News.

My beloved BBC World was abysmal. We had a thirty minute intro from an unknown on the spot anchor, Emma-Jane Kirby, before handing over to Huw and Crew. There was no sign of Nisha Pillai or Nik Gowing or Lyse Doucet, which I found strange. BBC Global audience had to make do with Huw Edwards. In BBC World land, no-one knows who he is. However, he did a good job.

CNN did the sensible thing by having a mixture of presenters from CNN and CNNI, which ensured that a familiar face or voice was available for the entire global audience. Christiane Amanpour was the third CNN voice - no further introduction needed. Preceded by Ricahrd Quest live in Rome for CNN Today.

However, Sky's presentation was outstanding, and the presenting team of Jeremy Thompson and Anna Botting (who present together on a daily basis anyway) was tremendous. However, the show was stolen by their freelance commentator, Alastair Bruce (I think that's his name), whose commentary was informative, consistent and well informed. The BBC and CNN sound quality was at times questionable, and their commentries - due to having multiple studio guests - was sometimes far too intrusive and gossipy. Sky did not have any sound or vision problems that I could detect.

Well done to Sky on their excellent coverage! (Never thought I would hear myself say that).

The real star of the show was, of course, the 84 year old Polish Gentleman who managed to bring all of these millions of people together in his memory.

Indeed, but we weren't the only ones to notice.
Turns out that back in the US, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central picked up on Fox's slight error. See the clip below!

Right Click and Save Target As 'comedy-central.zip' (4.55 MB)

(It was streamed on their website, but the streaming there is worse than crap so I chopped it up to get the relevent bit).

Sky's coverage wasn't as good as it could have been. For example, the commentator obviously wasn't a Catholic. I think it's a little unfair to ask an non-Catholic to explain Catholic ritual, but he did OK. Talking over the Latin with what was NOT a translation wasn't the best way- perhaps subtitles would have allowed everyone to both understand the prayers and feel the power of them as Cardinal Ratzinger said them.

Yes, Alistair Bruce is good on royal stuff but he does come out with some ridiculous stuff on the liturgy which may sound impressive to someone who doesn't know about these matters but is an absurb waffle to anyone with any knowledge of the liturgy.

I remember his commentary on the requiem for the victims of the Madrid bomb and it was all over the place

Totally agree with you Londoner.
One of the daftest things they did was pay a translator for the prayers, when any good Catholic could tell you they are published in prayer books costing buttons!
It was very silly when he tried to explain Holy Communion, clearly without having understood it himself.
Martin Stanford made an excellent point during Communion, and the priest who was with him thanked him for making it.

CTV would be responsible mostly, I guess. RAI Vaticano, a relatively new joint venture does do some things with Centro Televisivo Vaticano, most recently, the Via Crucis on Good Friday from the Colloseum. The shots during the funeral from the helicopter were from Italian police forces.