What happens when....

Really? With the QM it was a couple of hours then back to normal programming. I know it was expected given her age and less prominence than the Queen but I don't expect it to be like Diana which had blanket coverage from early morning to evening.

http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/diana_death/dd_bbc_11.jpg
(MHP)

And I think it's been hinted here before than no 'family' ident exists so I'd expect it to be the same as 2002 with BBC One and Two separately introducing BBC News with BBC Two resuming programmes after a length of time.

It all depends on how the Queen dies.

If she dies peacefully in her sleep one night, then the coverage will be extensive, but not a frenzy as it was in 1997 with Diana.

If the Queen is rushed into hospital and clings onto life for a couple of days, then we can expect much more hype. If you thought the news channels were OTT when they were waiting for Pope John Paul II to kick the holy bucket, then I think it would be safe to say that any prolonged dying swan act by Her Maj will be reciprocated with a global media frenzy.

For a "family" ident perhaps they could use the end still of those recent BBC promos (the ones where the letters come in from the side on that grey background), that would be quite suitable and respectful.

Beethoven's Piano Concerto followed by a Prayer.

I doubt we will ever see anything like that again

I seem to remember either the week (or just a day) after Diana died, advertising was a bit sparse on Sky One and they had no advertisement breaks and was left with 10-15 minutes towards the top of the hour and they filled it with a picture of Diana and some caption.

Sounds odd but Sky One did do something like this for the top of the hour.

Poor old Diana, she never did see the balloon ident released about 6 weeks after she died

That was just odd, ISTR in the Morning they would have a caption saying 'Turn over to Sky News' which was also on every other channel on available, some programmes had been moved aswell, they took off an Entertainment News programme and replaced it with The Simpsons instead, I do have on Video somewhere a scheduled Simpsons episode where the Sky 1 Ident would come on as usual but the announcer saying...

'Now On Sky 1 The Simpsons, For more on this morning's tragic incident in Paris turn over to Sky News...' I think later on in the evening Sky News was simulcast on Sky 1 for a bit. I also remember that the day she died was also the last day of the short lived Granada Talk TV which ended up showing Sky News all day long. Sky News was also broadcasting on Granada Plus for a bit in the afternoon, probably realising it wasn't appropriate to show Gladiators.

Anyway, I'll see if I can dig out the Sky 1 announcement...

The following is a news report of the death of Mother Teresa. Taken from the day before the funeral of Diana and was shown at the 7.30 junction. Top of the Pops were shown on BBC Two that night as BBC One was due to go to David Dimbleby at 8pm for live coverage of the Diana's body taking a tour round London.

From what I can remember Sky replaced all ad breaks on all channels with a film montage of Diana doing things during her life (ie walking through the minefields and on a log flume at a theme park with the two Princes)... this was accompanied by a well known piece of sombre classical music (the name of which I can't think of as I'm not that well up on classical music)

I also remember the messages on screen - some said turn to Sky News, I think some might've said CNN (probably on Cartoon Network) and some said turn to BBC News (UK Gold, UK Living etc..)

Yeah, and I doubt we'll see anything like that from a presentation point of view ever again. No family ident, no appropriate BBC 1/2 ident, captions, tickers and general 24hr news now commonplace, hi-tech studios...all very different from one Sunday almost nine years ago.

Only just though. The BBC were only 2-3 months away from putting their rolling news channel on air but it's probably safe to assume that even if the Diana business happened just after News 24 was launched. They would probably still go for their own BBC 1 newsteams to report the news.

Barber's Adagio for Strings, if memory serves. I don't remember the montage though - just a still.

Nickelodeon had a caption (in their own font - the one with all the arrows) telling viewers to switch to Sky News for "an announcement from Buckingham Palace", I think. Later in the day (or possibly on the day of the funeral), they dropped all adverts, and dug out plenty of longer-than-usual fillers, including Trapdoor.