The sombre black outfits have been ready for years, the studio rehearsals done many times and the obituaries and highlights packages were ready.
Like the BBC and ITV, Australian broadcasters had careful plans to launch on the death of the Queen.
Official news of the Queen’s death was announced in the UK by Huw Edwards at 6.30pm on BBC One and shortly after in Australia at 3.30am AEST.
ABC News Breakfast co-host Michael Rowland grabbed the black suit he bought for the occasion as he left home in the early hours of Friday morning. Rowland and co-host Lisa Millar were on air not long after news broke that the Queen had died. They threw out the rundown they had planned on Thursday and broadcast rolling news about the historic event for five hours.
“We all knew this broadcast would come and we were ready,” Rowland told the Guardian before boarding a plane for London, where he will anchor the network’s coverage.
“We had packages ready but as the news broke just before we came on air we actually didn’t go to many packages. We just focused on live pictures from Balmoral Castle, live pictures of the people streaming to Buckingham Palace and live interviews. We wanted to give our viewers a flavour of the fast-moving events.
“It is absolutely the biggest story I’ll cover live and, like every other broadcasting outfit, we have been doing rehearsal after rehearsal over the years and mock presentations on the Queen’s death and finally everything kicked into gear.”
The Seven news director, Craig McPherson, said planning for the death of the Queen had been in train for years and at 11pm on Thursday the coverage started with the network’s UK correspondents reporting live from Balmoral.
“Our long-term planning included prerecorded obituaries, right down to the finer details, like mourning dress for all our on-air talent and special breaking news graphics,” McPherson told the Guardian.
The palace’s confidential plans and detailed protocols were shared with Seven News and arrangements are now under way to cover the key moments leading up to the Queen’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, McPherson said.
Nine news executive, Alex Needs, said the network’s blueprint was to air international feeds such as the BBC until the local crew were ready to take over. The Today program co-hosts, Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon, had been on standby and they came into the North Sydney studio early to go live at 4.30am.
“Everyone had their black outfits ready for years,” Needs said. “Everyone has been match-ready for a while, particularly since we saw the Queen with the new [UK] prime minister, [Liz] Truss, and it made us all even more alert but not alarmed.”
Plans for the next 10 days are well under way and Nine already has Leila McKinnon, Tracy Vo and Charles Croucher on the ground in London. Tracy Grimshaw is heading over to anchor the coverage, a suitable outgoing gig for the A Current Affair host who is retiring after 17 years in November.
SBS has a mission to be diverse and provide the big picture on a major global story so it ran coverage of the Queen’s death from the UK, France, India and other countries.
“SBS, unlike the BBC, does not have specific directives requiring news readers to wear dark colours,” a spokesman said. “Rather, we reflect the prevailing mood and most presenters will acknowledge this by wearing dark colours.”
Tony will have some explaining to do to Jesus later on pic.twitter.com/0V2c6pTsmT
— marquelawyers (@marquelawyers) September 9, 2022
But not all the media managed the right tone. Reaching for a fresh angle, the Daily Mail said the Queen would be “reunited in heaven” with the late cricketer Shane Warne and a headline in the Australian quoted the former prime minister Tony Abbott saying the Queen’s death was the single most important death in human history.
The Daily Mail: “The death of Queen Elizabeth II comes just months after Shane Warne also passed away, and now details have emerged of the Australian cricket legend’s sweet friendship.”
But the Herald Sun is a strong candidate for silliest angle with a story that said the Queen appeared in the clouds an hour after she died.
A royal fan has reportedly spotted an outline of the late monarch in a random cloud formation, just moments after the Queen’s death was confirmed > https://t.co/56YBdiPXKZ pic.twitter.com/Xz27OXQFNd
— Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) September 9, 2022
“Leanne Bethell, who lives in the town of Telford in England’s West Midlands, shared a photo of what appeared to be the late monarch in her signature hat,” the Herald Sun reported.
