At the age of 36, the princess cut a figure of glamour and beauty and, despite the years of controversy and acrimonious dispute with the royal family, she still commanded much public popularity and international interest. In the week leading up to the accident, the tabloid press in Britain had been filled with pictures of her relaxing in the south of France with her new boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed. Her death in a car crash, apparently while being chased by press photographers, seemed as shocking as it was unexpected.

That Sunday, British terrestrial television channels suspended their scheduled programming and ran live rolling news for all or most of the day. The news coverage was dramatic and emotive, combining news narratives associated with disaster and crisis with what TV critic Mark Lawson has described as “memorial broadcasting,” where praise is heaped upon the recently deceased. Tributes were relayed from eminent politicians and personages around the world, and cameras started to focus on members of the public, some angry and emotional, leaving flowers outside palaces in London. A bitter and scathing statement vilifying the press was read by Earl Spencer, the princess’s brother in South Africa, and television commentators and journalists distanced themselves from the print media and discussed the potential implications of the accident on press regulation.

The future of the royal family was also discussed, and over the afternoon the coverage was intercut with scenes of Prince Charles and Diana’s two sisters flying to Paris to collect her body. Scenes of their return, with the aircraft departing Paris, flying into the sunset and then landing at an air force base just outside London, were particularly poignant and moving.

Yet a disorientating air of unreality hung over the day’s coverage, especially when television broadcast images of the car wreckage alongside footage of the princess while still alive, attending gala functions, meeting the sick and poor, and accompanying her two sons on visits to a theme park.

In the following days, television news followed events as revelations emerged that the princess’s French chauffeur may have been driving drunk, preparations were made for the funeral, and cameras relayed extraordinary scenes of people lining up for hours to leave flowers and sign books of condolence in London. These images were read as evidence of public mourning and helped fuel criticism in the tabloid press, which was repeated on television, of the royal family’s apparent neglect of the princess when alive. The royal family was also accused of being out of touch, for not displaying a response in keeping with the wave of public sympathy after her death. So stinging was the criticism that the queen was effectively forced to make a live address to the nation across all the terrestrial channels in memorial of the princess on the Friday night before the funeral.

The princess’s funeral, on Saturday, September 6, was described by a Buckingham Palace press spokesman as “a unique event for a unique person.” It had been a focus of speculation throughout the week and was, in the end, a triumph of organization for both the authorities and the broadcasters. With very little time for preparation, permission from the princess’s family to film the funeral service live inside Westminster Abbey was only granted to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Independent Television News (ITN) on Tuesday evening. Agreement was made with both the Spencer and royal families that there would be no television close-ups of any of the mourners in the Abbey.

The funeral was televised live across four out of five of the U.K. terrestrial channels, with both the BBC and ITN providing live relays to broadcasters around the world. It is estimated that a possible 2.5 billion people watched the funeral globally. Live coverage commenced at 9 A.M. in the U.K. as the funeral cortege, consisting of a horse-drawn gun-carriage bearing the princess’s coffin, and a small escort of guardsmen and mounted policemen, left Kensington Palace in London. The coverage followed the cortege every step of the way as it made its two-hour journey, on a sunny morning, through streets lined with people, past Buckingham Palace and Whitehall to Westminster Abbey. On the BBC, historical continuity was provided by the solemn commentary of David Dimbleby, son of the famous broadcaster Richard Dimbleby who had commentated for television at the queen’s coronation in 1953 and the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965.

The coverage continued through the hour-long service, which was marked by hymns, prayers, and readings and included an address by Earl Spencer and a live rendition of the song “Candle in the Wind” rewritten for the occasion and sung by the pop star Elton John. After the service and a national minute of silence, the main broadcasters continued to follow events as the princess’s coffin was taken by hearse back through London streets, lined with crowds applauding and throwing flowers, and then onto the motorway to make its last journey to Althorp in Northamptonshire. There the coverage ended as the princess was finally buried, out of the public gaze, at a private family service in the late afternoon.

Undoubtedly a poignant event that gripped and moved a large British and international audience, the funeral was considered the kind of television event at which the British excel. The BBC’s then-director general, John Birt, was to describe the week as “one of the most demanding in the BBC’s history.”

A year later, television’s response to the first anniversary of the princess’s death was a more muted affair. Several reports and books began to be published that suggested that not everyone had been caught up in the wave of public emotion, and some were critical of the press and media for orchestrating the apparent public response, and for perpetuating what some came to refer to as “grief fascism.”