Queen Elizabeth II Remembered: ABC’s Thursday-Night Coverage Plan

In the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing at age 96, ABC has rejiggered its Thursday-night lineup to remember the long-lived monarch.

Instead of its planned Thursday slate of Press Your Luck, Generation Gap and The Con, ABC instead will lead off the night with Queen Elizabeth II: The Legacy, The Life, anchored by George Stephanopoulos.

Then at 9 pm, the network will air Queen Elizabeth II: A Royal Life, a two-hour special edition of its 20/20 newsmagazine.

Neither CBS, which has a Big Brother eviction episode at 9 pm, nor Fox have plans to alter their Thursday lineups, while NBC is committed to Sunday Night Football‘s season kickoff.

Queen Elizabeth II, who held the British throne since 1952 and was the country’s longest-reigning monarch, died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon,” a tweet from the official Royal Family account posted on Thursday. “The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.”

Shortly thereafter, Buckingham Palace issued the following statement on behalf of her son Charles, who will go by King Charles III in the wake of Elizabeth’s death:

The death of my beloved Mother, Her Majesty The Queen, is a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family. We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished Sovereign and a much-loved Mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world. During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which The Queen was so widely held.