What happens when....

Lets say for instance one of the following was unfortuanate to loose their lives today... Prince Charles, William, Harry or HRH Queen Elizabeth II

What procedures are in place on the main television channels. How long would programmes be off air on BBC One and ITV1. Especially if the Queen was to die, as she is queen of country ect - would shops, business be expected to close, would schools be shut. Would BBC ONE have non stop news coverage when they allready have a news channel?
Would ITV fall to peices, how do you announced the death of someone so important to the UK?

Hate to benitpicky, it is HM Queen Elizabeth II, not HRH.

I think there will be an alternate programming procedures in place, just like what happened when the Queen Mother died. However, don't expect five to do anything. They are usually poor at that, IMO. When Princess Diana died, they carried on showing game shows and other things until the morning, from what I heard.

However, in this day and age, where things cannot wait (do you wait to sell your stocks when the prices are just right for waiting sake?), I don't expect things to just stop. UK is a financial power in the world, and things will go on. The FTSE might close, but the country, I don't think, will grind to a halt. But alas, I don't live in the UK, so my views might not be correct.

Any UK citizens want to add to this?

programmes would cease indefinitely for a year, the express would run conspiracy theories for a decade and Peter Sissons would wear a pink tie

They did thoughout the night, but then the death wasn't announced until about 5am. Also it was only a few months old, it's a diffrent and more experienced channel now, it also has access to a rolling news channel

BBC 1 carried BBC World until Martin Lewis began at 6am.

ITV News ran from about 4.40 IIRC with Dermot Murnaghan and Nicholas Owen

6.30am actually, sorry to be precise....full listing of the nights events and audio can be found here....
http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/diana.html

This article from the Guardian makes a good primer for royal death procedure:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,535766,00.html

Didn't GMTV go live in the morning, only to be taken over by ITV News?
Someone mentioned here FIVE rarely do anything, but if we go back to 7/7 Five was brilliant, it was actually Channel 4 that made it clear breaking news wasn't their game.

Here is the site that has the times ect of what went on TV when Diana died.....


http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/diana.html

Yes, thanks I got that link as you posted it already. It was the other way round, sorry.

I would think schools would be closed for a week or so (definitely closed for the funeral and the Coronation).

Radio stations aren't allowed to break the news of a royal death, to my knowledge. IRN (Independent Radio News) have to network it (or at least for some stations).

For the Queen, all analogue stations would probably carry uninterrupted coverage.

It's a pitty pages wern't built like that for other major news events. As time goes on the memories get blurred.