Couple of curio's from that great schedule upload.
Channel 4 - Sunday 10pm - Drop The Dead Donkey. A bit of subversive scheduling there. Give the non-stop news over the past 7 days, quite apt to show a fictional tv newsroom comedy.
ITV Sunday 11.15pm - F1 Italian Grand Prix. No live coverage of the race, either.
Probably the only time since 1997 that a race hasn't been shown live in the UK? Or was there some far eastern Grand Prix in the past that had to be shown in delay because GMTV refused to give up the airtime.
ITV Sunday 11.15pm - F1 Italian Grand Prix. No live coverage of the race, either.
Probably the only time since 1997 that a race hasn't been shown live in the UK? Or was there some far eastern Grand Prix in the past that had to be shown in delay because GMTV refused to give up the airtime.
ITV did show the race live the day after Diana's funeral - it's in that schedule above at 12:30pm. It's just Qualifying they didn't get shown live due to the funeral coverage. There's. YouTube video of ITV's coverage of the race from STV here, so it definitely went ahead:
ITV Sunday 11.15pm - F1 Italian Grand Prix. No live coverage of the race, either.
Probably the only time since 1997 that a race hasn't been shown live in the UK? Or was there some far eastern Grand Prix in the past that had to be shown in delay because GMTV refused to give up the airtime.
It was pretty common (up until about 2005 / 2006) for ITV to delay coverage of Qualiying for Far East (until lunchtime or even after prime time) or North American races (until after prime time). I don't think they ever didn't show a Far East race live, but they did move the 2000 US Grand Prix to ITV 2 - which at the time was about the same as not showing it live at all. (It was shown in full at about 10 or 10:30pm on ITV.)
Wasn't there a static caption during breaks on Sky1 with a picture of Diana?
Yep that's what I meant as such, I'm not sure if I've got a copy of it about, if I do it's a nano seconds worth.
I can remember Sky 1 showing video footage of Diana accompanied by sombre music instead of adverts - one particular bit of footage sticks in my mind of Diana and William and Harry on the log flume ride at Thorpe Park.
As a teenager I'd found the value in Sunday lie-ins but strangely woke up quite early that day and put the TV on in bed. Bleary-eyed I was flicking through the channels and I think BBC One and Two were showing the same thing (possibly with a signer on Two?) and was slightly confused why kids programmes weren't on. But it was watching Kirsty Young
behind
the desk on C5 that made me pay more attention. But still not quite realising what was going on, I went into the lounge, put Ceefax on and saw the "DIANA AND DODI DEAD IN PARIS CRASH" headline and just shouted my parents. I think I taped some stuff that day but sadly has been wiped/lost over the years. Maybe the programme on Sunday will show that first junction into BBC World that MHP on has in audio form?
I don't think we'll ever see that kind of public reaction or presentation style again.
When the decision was made to simulcast on BBC 2, they apparently had to first ask to get the transmitters "warmed up" because they'd already powered down for the night.
I wonder if that involved just crashing into BBC One/World or whether they bothered to show an ident from black and properly introduce it?
Talking of BBC Two, I'd never seen this clip before:
Based on how he's glancing down at his desk, I'm presuming he was given a script and had to stick to it. Given he had to stress how the reports were unconfirmed at the time, maybe the BBC wanted to be very strict on how the report was worded?
The first news report I heard was actually on local radio - the scheduled IRN/LBC bulletin at either 2am or 3am. This stated that Diana was badly injured and Dodi was dead - but nothing to suggest her condition was critical, and normal programming resumed.
The next morning I turned on the TV to images of crowds outside, perhaps, Buckingham Palace and one woman was holding a newspaper or placard with the words "Diana dead" clearly visible. (I imagine most Sunday papers would not have gone to press long before this was announced, so this is a tad confusing). I flicked to Ceefax which showed a message stating something like "Parts of this service have been suspended following the death of the Princess of Wales". That's when I started changing channels and found news coverage on four out of the five channels. The local radio stations appeared to take things slowly that day - well, the entire week to a point - playing middle of the road, relatively slow songs back to back, but at 10pm on the Sunday we did get Night Owls, the phone-in programme on Metro Radio, where presenter Alan Robson asked listeners to phone in with their own memories of Diana.
The next morning I turned on the TV to images of crowds outside, perhaps, Buckingham Palace and one woman was holding a newspaper or placard with the words "Diana dead" clearly visible. (I imagine most Sunday papers would not have gone to press long before this was announced, so this is a tad confusing).
Most of not all of the Sunday papers printed additional editions and got them distributed at least in most urban areas.
ITV Sunday 11.15pm - F1 Italian Grand Prix. No live coverage of the race, either.
Probably the only time since 1997 that a race hasn't been shown live in the UK? Or was there some far eastern Grand Prix in the past that had to be shown in delay because GMTV refused to give up the airtime.
It was pretty common (up until about 2005 / 2006) for ITV to delay coverage of Qualiying for Far East (until lunchtime or even after prime time) or North American races (until after prime time). I don't think they ever didn't show a Far East race live, but they did move the 2000 US Grand Prix to ITV 2 - which at the time was about the same as not showing it live at all. (It was shown in full at about 10 or 10:30pm on ITV.)
The Far East qualifying sessions were shown live but repeated at lunchtime (same for the races). The 2002 Japanese GP qualifying was only partially shown live however after a crash destroyed a safety barrier and a big delay for repairs followed, leading to ITV running out of time on the broadcast and having to hand over to GMTV.
The Canadian and American qualifying sessions were indeed aired on delay though, as they took place around 7pm GMT.