Major Events/Deaths and Planning for

A slightly strange and somewhat macabre topic to start I know, but at some point in the future there is bound to be a major event such as the death of a major Royal family member (one is almost 101!) and I was just wondering what plans you think (or know) the broadcasters have in place for these events.

What will they do - and do they have major plans in place for such an event?

All the networks are obliged to create tapes for such events.
I.e. taking coverage of Diana's death as an example, tapes for that were prepared a year or so in advanced, and updated every so often, for example, during the announcement of Diana's death on Sky, after it had been confirmed, they played the recording report, updated just a week before, by Simon McCoy, then royal correspondent, which lasted for over 10 mins.
All major networks have contingency plans should this sort of thing happen, for example, if the Queen were to die, you would get a live announcement and a bit of reation perhaps, and then the recorded report, which would last for say 10/15 mins, as they would not have had time to prepare a report in such a short space of time.

I think they'll do what happened when princess Diana was killed - have they news all day and suspend normal service, or BBC One will join BBC News24, and BBC Two might be filled with the BBC One schedule with News updates now and then.

Actually you can visit..........

Oh no it's from Sky, perhaps you wouldn't want to risk it.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/storytemplate/storytoppic/0,,0-1010719,00.html

It basically answers the question that you want to know!

Taking multi-channel networks (ie. BBC / Sky) - do you think they would pool all broadcasts together for one announcement? The BBC would surely stick News24, One and Two together.

Also, which presenters would they call first? Surely a major announcement would be made by a senior figure.

Cheshirec as you should know from the chat room, I am not a diehard BBC fan nor am I a hater of all things Sky!!

(Edited by Steve Naylor at 2:39 pm on April 21, 2001)

Peter Sissons or Chris Lowe.

Definately not Matthew Amroliaiaiaiaiaiaiaiawalalalala

The BBC only managed to get all networks together a while after the story broke, sometime mid morning I think, then BBC Two was allowed to break off coverage in the afternoon.
All channels on the Sky network had the strapline 'Turn to Sky News for an important announcement', then at about 6am, when Sunrise went to air, all Sky Network channel took Sky News coverage.

Yes, I think top presenters would be called in - when Diana died in Aug 1997, BBC World called Nik Gowing in (the Main Presenter) to cover the story all day. Nik actually e-mailed me the other day. On his e-mail, his signature was 'Nik Gowing, Main Presenter, BBC World' and his office and moblie numbers!

just a joke Ste

And the announcement was made by Peter Sissons, with the world 'This is BBC Television from London. Diana....'
On the BBC's overnight coverage they had some overnight anchor, not sure who he was, I know that ITN (who were on air an hour or so after the BBC) had Dermot and Nick Owen, and Sky had Martin Stanford and Kay Burley, Martin was lone anchor when the story broke, and Kay arrived at approx 4am.
As, Kay and Martin were then anchors of Sunrise.
I know the American channels simply did the following:

NBC did it's own coverage of the event, with Tom Brokaw and Kate Couric, I think..
CNN did it's own coverage with, from what I can remember Lou Waters and someone else, incidentally the news broke at 'prime time' in the US, so they all had their top flight anchors out.
ABC took BBC coverage for a time
CBS and FOX took Sky coverage into the rest of the day, with occasionally updates from NY.
Radio networks took their respective owners coverage.
I know that TF1's coverage of the event  (Television France 1) was excellent, and they were obviously live at the scene before any other international network, incidentally, I was lucky I spoke french!
From what I can rememeber the last time I watched the tapes, Sky were the first network outside France to actually go in-vision live, with the Reuters Bureau chief, as Reuters and Sky work in a partnership, giving Sky exclusive access to the 130+ Reuters bureaus, should this sort of thing happen.

(Edited by cheshirec at 3:49 pm on April 21, 2001)

Didn't the BBC have Martin Lewis overnight ?

I know that Peter Sissons was the first to break the news on BBC One.