Duke of Edinburgh: Funeral Build-Up

[XIII]

It’s going to be a bit of a weird funeral in terms of hardly anyone from the public. Looking at the last main royal funeral speaking to the public and others took up some of the space between the start of the programme and the actual funeral. Broadcasters will have to fill that space with something else.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34I0gvoJy6Y

I also wonder can we expect a very somber title sequence or will be be more clear cut perhaps more suited to the man.

I wonder if the coverage will be shorter than usual?

[Brekkie]

There will still be people there to talk to I'm sure, regardless of advice to stay away. And filling for hours on end is what these broadcasters do.

[aaron_scotland]

There will still be people there to talk to I'm sure, regardless of advice to stay away. And filling for hours on end is what these broadcasters do.

Yup. Royal Family said dont leave flowers, theres hundreds there! The streets will be as packed as they can Im sure, it might infact be tricky to show the crowds without revealing all the Covid rule breaks.

[Inspector Sands]

Going back to the old thread, as I missed out replying.

Regarding the official title of The Prince Philip, it reminds me of the opening ceremony of London 2012 when Prince Harry was captioned as Prince Henry of Wales much to the confusion of those who didn't rember him being born or had forgotten what he was named

[joshuanesbit]

BBC setup outside Windsor Castle. - Does anyone know what the weird, small square on the light stand on the right with the cable coming down from it is? Trying to work out what it could be... is it a radio receiver of some sort? https://twitter.com/rosannapw/status/138...1820125186

It almost looks like a Marshal mini camera. I know the media were forbidden from having 2 cameras outside Windsor for Anchor + Guest cameras so maybe a workaround to get a wide shot.

EDIT: Infact its a bit high for that, I still suspect Marshall camera but maybe for a clean shot of the castle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CV-LYcBjyI looks like it could be this camera, indeed. although I think there were two close up shots, one of Sarah Campbell and one of the woman on the left (can't remember her name) you can just about see the legs of the other tripod on the bottom left

[madmusician]

I see that I missed contributing to the other thread before its closure (btw, many thanks @rob for your outstanding stewardship of the new forum and congratulations for coming through your first 'major event' with flying colours!) so I hope that people don't mind me sharing a few thoughts in this 'pre-funeral' thread.

I felt that, by and large, the BBC handled it in exemplary fashion on TV. I've been fascinated to read through the analysis and information in the earlier thread of how and when they heard the news and, given they found out from the same wire news flash as everybody else with no pre-warning, everybody concerned did such a good job. No repeat of the mess in 2002 here!

I don't particularly want to get into the discussions around the scheduling decisions made on Friday other than to say that I am on the side of the argument that understands why the BBC did what it did. There's no way they could be criticised for not showing enough respect to HRH or the royal family, and I can understand why in the current climate they would choose to 'jump' that way rather than the other. In terms of people saying 'well, this is an argument for having Netflix', then yes I guess it is, but don't forget that the BBC offer iPlayer with its own large catalogue of programmes past and present, and there's plenty on there for people to watch. If you're banging on about watching Netflix (whether that's through a smart TV app or a tablet or whatever), don't forget that the BBC offers a large-scale service on exactly the same platforms so they are not underserving you. I have more sympathy for those who don't have access to a streaming service, although with the advent of multi-channel TV (even elderly viewers with no add-on services have the full Freeview range of channels these days) there's more choice than ever, even if the BBC itself wasn't offering it through broadcast channels on Friday evening.

Anyway, enough of that - I'm aware this argument has been done to death and I don't particularly want to resurrect it, just to chime in with some thoughts that I had.

I thought the BBC 'family' ident was absolutely perfect and shows that the BBC can still do appropriate presentation when they need to. Oddly, unlike many here, I thought the gold colour scheme for the BBC logo worked really well, and I'm not normally one to like the BBC logo appearing in any colour other than white or black (I really dislike the new iPlayer logo for example). Unlike a post on the previous thread, I also liked the use of 'the BBC' by the CA over the family ident. I thought it was a really good way of modernising the slightly archaic "BBC Television from London" and gave the announcements a real authority. I feel that the argument that this announcement devalued the rest of the BBC's offering was slightly overthinking the matter, and I think most people would realise that 'the BBC' was referring to its television operation.

For me, that ident and the style of announcement oozed authority and class, whilst not appearing too aloof or out of touch. I think it got the balance just right, and it pleased me that clearly the Beeb can still do it when it puts its mind to it. (Now just sort out your BBC One branding, please...!)

As for the radio coverage, I feel this was a lot weaker. A lot has already been written about the inappropriateness of a speech special being carried on the music stations for well over three hours, and I think it would have been ideal for a music and news programme to have been played out on the popular music stations from 1pm onwards, leaving the speech content to Radios 3, 4 and 5 live, with the stations then going their separate ways once again later in the afternoon once the individual stations had had time to prepare their presenters and production teams. I understand that the BBC has fewer resources than it once did, but I would hope that this would be considered a 'learning point' of this time's obituary procedure.

And, whilst I completely understand the lack of preparation time the BBC had to release the news, it was exceptionally messy how the stations all joined the announcement. This is my slightly OCD side talking, but it would have been ideal for each of the stations to have been given the clock time for the opt-out and have the music stations playing a song at that time (as Radio 1 was doing), rather than cutting across speech.

The way it worked with Radio 5 Live was bizarre. From what has been posted on here, it sounds as though it was the protocol for any individual station not to announce the news until the interruption across all networks. So, I don't know why 5 Live made their own announcement. Adrian Chiles really did not announce it well, it was clearly a complete shambles at their end, but it sounded like they had no idea that the interruption was coming, as they had already started their own 'obit' report which was then cut out. They'd have been better off waiting for the main interruption, and I can only assume that the protocol wasn't followed by the 5 Live production team, which led to this mess.

Anyway, of course everybody working on the news programmes and radio stations did their best, it was clear that there was a strong plan of action in place to deliver the news which, by and large, went well. As I said at the start of this lengthy post, it's clear that this was another 2002 where it all went very wrong indeed. The BBC announced the news across TV and Radio with authority and class and nobody can accuse them of getting this one wrong in terms of a lack of respect being shown.

[joshuanesbit]

BBC setup outside Windsor Castle. - Does anyone know what the weird, small square on the light stand on the right with the cable coming down from it is? Trying to work out what it could be... is it a radio receiver of some sort? https://twitter.com/rosannapw/status/138...1820125186

go to 1 hour 5 mins https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...l-10042021 definitely two close up shots . interesting that the ifb pack not plugged in to anything, wire seems to go back to anchor

[aaron_scotland]

BBC setup outside Windsor Castle. - Does anyone know what the weird, small square on the light stand on the right with the cable coming down from it is? Trying to work out what it could be... is it a radio receiver of some sort? https://twitter.com/rosannapw/status/138...1820125186

go to 1 hour 5 mins https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...l-10042021 definitely two close up shots . interesting that the ifb pack not plugged in to anything, wire seems to go back to anchor

I only heard the 1 camera rule from Sky and assumed it would be the same for all broadcasters, Guess BBC are allowed more then.

[Chud]

Seeing the clip of the 2 presenters in studio c for Mandela’s announcement, do you think we will ever see 2 presenters presenting together ever for breaking news? (Post Covid)

[Brekkie]

The news is so weird at the moment.

Main headlines:
Friday: Prince Phillip has died.
Monday: People have gone for a haircut.

[joshuanesbit]

BBC setup outside Windsor Castle. - Does anyone know what the weird, small square on the light stand on the right with the cable coming down from it is? Trying to work out what it could be... is it a radio receiver of some sort? https://twitter.com/rosannapw/status/138...1820125186

go to 1 hour 5 mins https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...l-10042021 definitely two close up shots . interesting that the ifb pack not plugged in to anything, wire seems to go back to anchor

I only heard the 1 camera rule from Sky and assumed it would be the same for all broadcasters, Guess BBC are allowed more then.

would you say the big block on the right of the picture is also another camera?

[valley]

BBC setup outside Windsor Castle. - Does anyone know what the weird, small square on the light stand on the right with the cable coming down from it is? Trying to work out what it could be... is it a radio receiver of some sort? https://twitter.com/rosannapw/status/138...1820125186

go to 1 hour 5 mins https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...l-10042021 definitely two close up shots . interesting that the ifb pack not plugged in to anything, wire seems to go back to anchor

I only heard the 1 camera rule from Sky and assumed it would be the same for all broadcasters, Guess BBC are allowed more then.

would you say the big block on the right of the picture is also another camera?

It’s another camera but facing away from the BBC team - you can see the back of it.

The box on the fence is a spare IFB and the thing on the stand is a Marshall minicam.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Going back to the old thread, as I missed out replying.

Regarding the official title of The Prince Philip, it reminds me of the opening ceremony of London 2012 when Prince Harry was captioned as Prince Henry of Wales much to the confusion of those who didn't rember him being born or had forgotten what he was named

I was surprised looking back at some of the early coverage of Diana's car crash (before it became an obit) that the astons were referring to her as "Princess Diana", which was never the correct title, even during her marriage. For the same reason that Kate Middleton didn't become Princess Catherine upon marriage, and that there is a Princess Michael of Kent.

[joshuanesbit]

BBC setup outside Windsor Castle. - Does anyone know what the weird, small square on the light stand on the right with the cable coming down from it is? Trying to work out what it could be... is it a radio receiver of some sort? https://twitter.com/rosannapw/status/138...1820125186

go to 1 hour 5 mins https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...l-10042021 definitely two close up shots . interesting that the ifb pack not plugged in to anything, wire seems to go back to anchor

I only heard the 1 camera rule from Sky and assumed it would be the same for all broadcasters, Guess BBC are allowed more then.

would you say the big block on the right of the picture is also another camera?

It’s another camera but facing away from the BBC team - you can see the back of it.

The box on the fence is a spare IFB and the thing on the stand is a Marshall minicam.

is spare ifb for press or guest? was just following the xlr cable coming out of it and seems to just go back to pres

[Steve in Pudsey]

I guess if it's a spare it's for whatever situation occurs that requires a spare.