These would vary between long programmes at important points in the mission, such as launching and undocking, shorter progress reports, and special Moon-centric contributions to news bulletins, children's television and Twenty-Four Hours, a current affairs show.

Rock group Pink Floyd provided an exclusive instrumental piece called "Moonhead": there is an audio recording of the track,[5] which was only officially released in 2016 as part of the box set The Early Years 1965–1972.

Featured alongside them were distinguished actors including Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Michael Hordern and Roy Dotrice, all reading quotes and poetry about the moon.

In fact, it resulted in quite a calm overnight operation with, if I remember correctly, not a single major panic situation other than numerous sound comprehension problems.

When Buzz Aldrin became the second man on the Moon nineteen minutes later, the picture quality had improved – after the moonrise in Australia the signal had moved from the smaller Goldstone in California to the stronger signal received on the main on-axis receiver of the Parkes[11] radio-telescope in Australia, and then relayed via the Honeysuckle Creek station to Sydney for subsequent distribution uplink.

The main front man for the bulletins was Alastair Burnet, assisted by science correspondent Peter Fairley and former employee of NASA Paul Haney.

With 16 hours of coverage, in between news bulletins was David Frost's Moon Party, a discussion and entertainment show made by London Weekend Television.

It featured showbiz personalities such as Peter Cook, Cilla Black, Cliff Richard, Lulu, Mary Hopkin, Sammy Davis Jr., Hattie Jacques and Eric Sykes.

The show, transmitted from London Weekend's Wembley Studios, also featured more serious guests, such as Desmond Morris and Dame Sybil Thorndike.

"[16] The show continued for longer than expected as the film Down to Earth was cancelled when NASA had brought forward their schedule by several hours, the moonwalk originally planned to occur at 7 am British time.

[1][15] There were also reactions from the public at Trafalgar Square and from British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and Peter Sissons interviewing experts including Sir Bernard Lovell at Jodrell Bank.

The captions were made by listening to the Houston-Lunar Module talkback, then entering in computer codes, which translated the Eagle's speed and altitude into on-screen information.

"[15] In his diary on 21 July 1969, comedian Michael Palin wrote "the extraordinary thing about the evening was that, until 3:56 am, when Armstrong clambered out of the spaceship and activated the keyhole camera, we had seen no space pictures at all, and yet ITV had somehow contrived to fill ten hours with a programme devoted to the landing.

"[17] Comparing the BBC and ITV's takes on the broadcast, Stanley Reynolds in The Guardian commented: "Perhaps on no other programme have we seen quite so clearly the basic differences between the two television services.

The danger is that the viewer will be so saturated with information that his responses will be blunted when it comes to the moments of real excitement: pop music, however, provides the necessary let-up and fulfills [sic?]

[16] The footage of the BBC and ITV coverage became victim to the broadcasting policy of the era of either eventually erasing videotapes or simply not keeping them.

It contains extracts from the BBC television coverage of the first Moon landing, with additional retrospective views by Arthur C. Clarke and Patrick Moore.