TV, Radio Coverage of Princess’ Funeral

There will be bountiful television and radio coverage of the funeral for Princess Diana on Saturday. But because of the time difference between here and London, the live telecast will hit the airwaves at 3 a.m. West Coast time.

Recognizing that not everyone will want to watch in the middle of the night, however, many channels plan to tape the proceedings for a second airing later Saturday.

The television coverage will be prodigious, coming not only from the usual news outlets--ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, C-SPAN, MSNBC--but also from some channels you might not expect: cable’s A&E;, Lifetime and E! Entertainment Television. Even local stations KTLA-TV Channel 5, KCAL-TV Channel 9, KTTV-TV Channel 11 and Spanish-language KMEX-TV Channel 34 will be beaming pictures from London.

Most of the outlets will begin their telecasts well before the formal funeral proceedings. All-news outlets MSNBC and Fox News Channel, for example, will start coverage at 9 and 10 tonight, respectively. CBS begins at 12:35 a.m.; NBC, CNN, E! and A&E; at 1 a.m.; C-SPAN at 1:30 a.m.; ABC and KMEX at 2 a.m.

On radio, both KNX-AM (1070) and KABC-AM (790) will broadcast the funeral proceedings live. KABC will follow with a talk program hosted by Michael Jackson from London.

Taped replays of the funeral will be aired Saturday at 5 a.m. on CBS, 6 a.m. on Fox News Channel, 7 a.m. on ABC and NBC, 9 a.m. on E!, 5 p.m. on C-SPAN, 8 p.m. on Lifetime and at both 9 p.m. Saturday and 1 a.m. Sunday on the History Channel.

E! also will air a one-hour recap of the day’s events at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Saturday, and CBS will broadcast an hourlong news special, “Farewell to Diana,” at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Here are some of the VCR Plus+ codes for people who want to set their VCRs to record four hours of coverage beginning at 2 a.m.:

KCBS-TV Channel 2: 218235

KNBC-TV Channel 4: 236631

KTLA-TV Channel 5: 924419

KABC-TV Channel 7: 942815

KCAL-TV Channel 9: 562693

KTTV-TV Channel 11: 557761

KMEX-TV Channel 34: 115709

CNN (beginning at 3 a.m.): 894167