Response To The 2005 London Bombings - Media Response

Media Response

The first indication of the attacks came at 9:15 a.m., when Sky News, during its Sunrise breakfast show, flashed a report of an explosion at Liverpool Street Station in the City of London. The main UK TV networks (BBC One and ITV) dropped programming and carried news solidly within 30 minutes of the first reports. Initially, the BBC's response was slow. At 9:20 a.m., a graphic appeared on BBC News 24 reporting an explosion in the City of London, only for it to be removed and go unmentioned by the channel's presenters for a further five minutes. Around this time, BBC One broke into programming with a short news report, and then returned to regular programming, only to have to return to the news studio several minutes later when the gravity of the incident became clearer. The major television channels' coverage continued throughout the day with simulcasts of the channels' respective rolling news services BBC News 24 and the ITV News Channel. The length of this media coverage in the UK was unprecedented: for example it was the single longest broadcast in ITN's history. There was total blanket coverage on all UK rolling news channels for several days.

Radio stations toned down their programming with extended news and information throughout the day. BBC Radio 4 took rolling news programming from BBC Radio 5 Live during the morning. GCap Media's London music radio stations – Capital Radio, Capital Gold, Choice FM and Xfm – simulcast rolling news coverage from the time the first reports came in. This coverage, aimed at Londoners struggling to get home or to work in the aftermath of the attacks, was much acclaimed within the industry and won the coveted Sony Gold Award.

BBC Radio 4 pulled its scheduled Classic Serial without explanation; it was to have been John Buchan's Greenmantle, about the revolt of Muslims against British interests abroad. ITV cancelled a broadcast of the film The X-Files at midnight on 9 July, which featured an explosion at a U.S government building caused by a bomb. Another film, Stakeout, was shown instead. The following evening, the terrorism-themed action film The Siege, originally scheduled for a 10:15 p.m. broadcast on ITV1, was replaced by Gone in 60 Seconds. Similarly, in Denmark Blown Away featuring Tommy Lee Jones as a bomber was replaced on national TV station Danmarks Radio by Rain Man. Five postponed the showing of the CSI fifth season finale by a week because it featured a suicide bomber. It was replaced with a repeat from an earlier season. Sky One replaced the advertised episode of their documentary series "Conspiracies" on 10 July. The planned episode was due to focus on the Lockerbie bombing. It was replaced with an episode that focused on the Siege of Waco instead. Meanwhile, the network removed references to terrorism when broadcasting an episode of WWE SmackDown!. The episode was taped two days before the attacks. (However, this episode, in which The Undertaker was the subject of a mock attack by two Muslim wrestlers, was shown unedited in the United States, to the chagrin of many viewers and critics.)

BBC Two's topical news quiz Mock the Week was cancelled – the episode had been the last one of the show's first series and was replaced instead by a clip show showing edited highlights and outtakes from previous episodes in the show's run. Channel 4's comic panel game Eight out of Ten Cats was edited to remove a section of the show in which the panellists discussed which news stories the public had been discussing that week, and that portion remained absent from most of the rest of the series.

BBC Radio 1's programming proceeded as normal throughout the day but with regular reports and updates both from the incumbent DJs and the Newsbeat team generally including listener feedback on the transport situation. Scott Mills at the time usually had an afternoon slot but was standing in that morning for Chris Moyles' Breakfast Show (Moyles was on holiday), with Vernon Kay in turn due to stand in for Mills in the evening. Due to the transport disruption Kay was unable to make it into the studio and Mills (also unable to travel out from the studio) filled in his usual evening slot. He managed to speak to Kay on the phone, who assured that he was OK and just stuck somewhere. Finally due to high listener demand (he claimed) Mills rounded off this show with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba. The lyrics "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down" were meant to represent the defiant attitude of the tuned-in listeners.

The bbc.co.uk website recorded an all time bandwidth peak of 11Gbit/s at 12:00 on 7 July. BBC News received some 1 billion total hits on the day of the event (including all images, text and HTML), serving some 5.5 terabytes of data.

Press photographs of a victim of the attacks being assisted by former firefighter Paul Dadge became iconic of the attacks.

R.E.M.'s concert in Hyde Park, scheduled for 9 July, was postponed until 16 July. Queens of the Stone Age were also obliged to call off their 7 July show at Somerset House.