At 0844 gmt this morning, CNN/I came out of a commerical break and into breaking news, interrupting World Sport which was live in progress from London.
Max Foster was live outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster with news of Tony Blair's impending announcement of his retirement as leader of the Labour Party, and as Prime Minister. Live footage was shown of Blair's vehicle convoy heading for RAF Northolt, from where he was to fly to his constituency of Sedgefield in north-east England.
CNN stayed with live shots of Blair entering his jet, the jet journeying to the runaway, and the plane taking off.
Regular programming resumed at 0905 gmt, with Larry King Replay in progress.
During Business International at 1000gmt, CNN/I went back to live coverage of Blair as he arrived in Sedgefield, and travelled to the Labour Club there. Adrian Finighan was anchoring from the London studio, with Max Foster at Parliament and Robin Oakley in Downing Street.
CNN/I brought live coverage of Blair's speech, when he announced he will step aside on 27 June.
Continuing live coverage from Max Foster in Westminster replaced World News Asia at 1100 gmt and part of World News at 1200 gmt. This then continued with Michael Holmes in Atlanta, with more on the story.
As an aside, the CNN/I digital downlink on the Astra 19.2ºE satellite is having some problems today. For a couple of hours, the signal has broken up intermittantly, sometimes disappearing completely with a "bad signal" message appearing. This is transmitted, and is not a local reception problem. It suggests a reception problem at the site of uplink to the satellite.
How do you know which satellite it is??
ReplyDeleteI was watching directly off the satellite, with a free-to-air satellite receiver, rather than through - for instance - Sky Digital, or cable.
ReplyDelete