Nelson Mandela aged 95 has died

Then again, it's not as if BBC2 are showing anything vital at that time of day (also lets BBC News on BBC1 get on with the news, whether they will or not is anyone's guess).

I don't see why not, there is no BBC2 daytime any more

Was abroad when the news of Mandela's death broke but, being an anorak, checked YouTube to see how BBC1 handled it. And it seemed a bit of a mess.

To be honest, it's not an easy call to make, and whatever you do people will criticise you. I don't know if there was ever a plan in place for breaking the news of Mandela's death, or whether it would have been an on-the-spot decision that night. So I have some sympathy with those in charge that night.

However, under the circumstances I do feel it would have been better to wait for the 10pm news. Clearly at that time of night BBC News is gearing up for that broadcast, restricting their ability to do a proper newsflash. So we got a generic news ident with an announcement telling us we're going to hear from President Zuma (most Mrs Brown's Boys viewers would have gone 'who?' at that point...) and then only the caption telling us immediately what has happened as we were halfway through the announcement on the News Channel. Messy.

On taking Mrs Brown's Boys off the air ... personally I don't find the show funny in the slightest, but we do have a problem in this country with popular programming. There is still a place for stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously. I do wonder if The Guardian and so forth would have been quite so smug about the people phoning to complain if it had been an average but 'credible' drama show that was taken off instead. However, I do agree with the principle of major newsflashes taking precedence over entertainment programming.

In terms of comparing it to people complaining about programmes being disrupted when he was released ... well, we're in a very different media landscape now. Back then there news channels were very much for the minority on satellite and there was no internet, so you wouldn't have found out about it another way. Now, in theory, you could drop a caption on screen and direct people to the News Channel if you felt it necessary - indeed, as happened on BBC2 or BBC Alba - or otherwise people would find out in a variety of other ways. Personally, with hindsight, it being so close to 10pm anyway I would have left it, but it wasn't an easy call. Strangely, it would have been an easier call at almost any other time of the day.

ITV had a live show from Australia to contend with, with the implications of phone voting, alerting the regions, and the News at Ten due soon afterwards to contend with. The bulletin then ads wasn't ideal, but if you had started the show early then people who tune in specifically at 10 would have missed the start and if you hadn't and just cancelled the adverts then there would have been a long space to fill. Ideally you would have hoiked I'm A Celebrity off the air, shown a sombre ident (oh wait, I've just remembered what the ITV logo looks like ...) and then gone into a Newsflash, welcoming new viewers along at 10 and recapping the news. I suspect at any other time of the day they would have done this, but given the potential for things going wrong they decided to leave it 10 minutes. There's a case for both ways of handling it.

As a comparison to how the BBC is handling the story, of all things I was in Germany when it happened and was watching Tagesschau on Germany's Ard station - the show credited with being a major influence on the collapse of the Berlin Wall, no less. They were a good 10 minutes behind the BBC and flipped into sombre mode to announce his death, showed an obituary ... and then got on with the rest of the show. No other channels seemed to break into programming. Cameron rushed out of Downing Street to make an announcement, but there was no Angela Merkel on German TV. A major contrast. In the following days coverage of a major storm which had just made its way over from the UK (so cheers for that) dominated proceedings, with the Mandela story relegated to second.

Personally I think the BBC has handled things well since but possibly gone a little too earthquake-mode on the one story. Watching BBC World the following day there was no other news, for example. But it is the death of a major international figure, so it's better to go overboard than underdo it in my opinion.

I agree with just about everything you've written.

And just to add, this news broke just moments before both the late night news bulletins were due to air on BBC1 and ITV. The entire NAT running order was effectively ripped up and replaced with less than 10 minutes to air.

Personally, I think the BBC, ITN and Sky did a good job in the circumstances, despite some minor hiccups along the way.

When was the last time ITN broke out of a programme for a news flash? All I can remember is ITV waiting till the next break, Even in 1980 with the Iranian Embassy Siege, network held off to finish Corrie off first.

As its been said the main news was only 10mins away.

All the ITN news flashes I've seen have been in the next available ad break. One exception was Prince William leaving hospital in June 1982, it was timed perfectly at the half time whistle of a World Cup football match.

It seems the BBC has not got a good track record:

I actually think the BBC World coverage of 9/11 was well handled. A very calm, professional presenter, speaking very slowly and clearly, recapping frequently - a very good idea when you don't yet know what you're dealing with and viewers are trying to take in what they're seeing. They were very fortunate with their timing on speaking to their correspondent on the ground as they got the full extent of the panic and drama playing out, while she was still able to intervene and make it clear both towers were on fire.

As I remember Kay Burley was on Sky News at the time and when the second plane hit initially thought she was watching a replay of the first crash before it became clear quite how bad this story was. Remember, these presenters are human beings who wouldn't quite believe what they were seeing. There's no amount of training that can prepare you for what some news bosses now call a "f***ing hell" story.

The initial 9/11 coverage on BBC1 came from BBC News 24 and was hampered by that - in retrospect it would have been good to get some known presenters on air earlier. But this was fairly early on in the channel's existence.

The second clip is a little unfortunate but it's hardly a grade-A disaster like the BBC with the Queen Mother's death.

If you watch the whole clip, you actually see the second plane hit at 04:59mins, no one commentating
notices, then it's speculated at 07:25 that maybe second building is on fire, due to the original plane passing straight through, it isn't until 10:10 that the clip of plane 2 hitting is (re)shown (introduced as new footage, which it wasn't)

However, it's easy to pick holes with the luxury of examining every frame of a recording 12 years later !

The other challenge for ITV is that they don't have a rolling news channel, so it's not as simple for them as it is for BBC1 to opt into coverage that is in progress on their News Channel.

An interesting piece, though it's worth noting every country has a different relationship with Mandella and I suspect the Commonwealth link makes it a bigger story here than in much of Europe.

It's very easy for us to say they should have done this and done that and hence pretty much impossible for the channels to do something that pleases everyone. I suspect if both BBC and ITV have either waited until 10pm or broken into programmes it would have gone pretty much without comment, but both taking different approaches, and both not doing things perfectly, left them open for criticism.

Personally I think the BBC were right to break into programming but wrong just to crash into a press conference with the news announced on screen. The nature of the news actually warranted it being presented to the viewer by a newsreader.

Similarly ITV could have handled their mini-news flash much better. Personally I think they should at least have dropped the ads before News at Ten but even failing that they could have given ITN a slightly longer window to act as a newsflash (surely 10 minutes warning for STV/UTV is enough to extend the news promo to 40-60 seconds) before airing the ads and returning to News at Ten.

The German and French broadcasts announcing the death of Mandela can be seen in the links below. Both broadcasts started at 22:35 and they both announced Mandela's death 16 minutes in.

As mentioned, Tagesthemen on ARD just showed a VT and a short telephone interview before carrying on. Grand Soir 3 on France 3 made a quick announcement and handed over to a short filler piece (Eurozapping, with news stories from around Europe, including BBC's storm coverage) while they altered the broadcast. They had already prepared a debate on France's military engagement in Central Africa, and that could quickly be altered to include a discussion about Mandela.

http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/tt5136.html
http://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-jt/france-3/soir-3/jt-grand-soir-3-jeudi-5-decembre-2013_470076.html