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UPDATE SATURDAY 7 PM: Almost 23 million viewers in the U.S. watched the coverage of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton from 6AM to 7:15AM ET on Friday across 11 networks. That outpaces the estimated 17 million who tuned in for Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981, which was carried by the Big 3 broadcast networks in the era before the proliferation of cable. According to Nielsen, the combined viewership for yesterday’s nuptials was 22.77 million on ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, BBC America, CNN, E!, FOX News, MSNBC and TLC. In households, the William-Kate wedding drew 18.6 million vs. 14.2 million for Charles-Diana. As for Charles’ wedding to Camila Parker Bowles in 2005, it was watched by 3.65 million viewers.
SATURDAY AM – Deadline’s London Editor Tim Adler reports: Nearly 27 million British TV viewers watched the Royal Wedding live, according to the three main broadcasters of Friday’s event. That is still fewer than the 28.4 million who watched the 1981 wedding of Charles and Diana on BBC and ITV. The BBC peaked at 20 million viewers when Prince William and Kate Middleton exchanged vows; ITV peaked at 6 million; and Sky News at 661,000. Those watching on other channels –- Channel 4 and Five –- made up only 1% of the Brit TV audience. The figures still put yesterday’s Royal Wedding among the top 10 of programs ever watched in the UK, although the 1966 World Cup final and Princess Diana’s 1997 funeral drew bigger audiences.
Brit officials estimated the Royal Wedding would be watched by 2 billion people worldwide. That left ratings experts over here scratching their heads. The biggest-ever global audience for a single TV event was an estimated 1 billion in 2008 for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, says the BBC. Countries including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria do not even have TV ratings. “It’s absurd to think that one-third of the world’s population watched the Royal Wedding,” one analyst said. “Most people around the world were asleep. If you think about it for a moment, it’s nonsense.”
BBC: The BBC has predictably claimed UK ratings victory for the Royal Wedding. Seventy percent of UK TV viewers watched the BBC’s coverage at the peak moment when Prince William and Kate Middleton exchanged vows. Twenty million UK viewers watched live on BBC TV and via its online iPlayer service. Across the day, 34.7 million viewers watched the Beeb’s coverage. The BBC website crashed due to the volume of computers trying to access it. BBC News website got 9.4 million uniques — 4 million in the UK and 5.4 million internationally. BBC America also carried BBC1’s coverage live, which was also streamed around the world through the various international BBC channels. Another 40 broadcasters in 25 countries including the U.S. also carried the BBC Royal Wedding live feed.
ITV: ITV, meanwhile, won a peak audience of 6 million. This is seen as a victory for ITV: Not only have UK critics said its Royal Wedding coverage was livelier, but a 3-to-1 ratio in favor of the BBC is a good result for the UK’s biggest commercial terrestrial; media commentators had expected something more like 5-to-1 in favor for the Beeb. Peter Fincham, ITV director of television, said: “We are very pleased that the audience increasingly chose to stay with us during the afternoon, which also reflects the fantastic feedback we have had about our coverage.”
Sky: Sky News got a UK peak viewing figure of 661,000 at 11 AM London GMT (3 AM PST) –- nearly triple its average peak time audience –- as people tuned in to see that dress. The Sky News website got 1 million uniques, roughly double what it gets in a normal day. And the Sky News iPad app had its best performance day since launch six weeks ago at 35,000.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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I really, really don’t understand why they had to marry on Friday and not on Saturday. Except for Britain in every country in the world people were at work. If it was a day like Saturday then people could sit whole day at home and watch. But now someone watched it from work but some didn’t had that opportunity.
This is an old British custom. Commoners often marry on Saturdays because they have to work during the rest of the week. But moneyed aristocrats don’t have to hold a job to make a living, so they usually marry during the work-week.
But in this particular case, it is an occasion to offer the Brits a 4-day week-end as next Monday is a holiday over there.
I am not doubting your statement Christophe, as a matter of face, I find it informative. I have heard though that since William is in the RAF Coast Guard, he isn’t even taking a honeymoon right after the wedding as he only has 2 weeks ‘saved’ up, so I’m thinking he had to get Friday off and cleared by his commanding officer so he would have the weekend with his new wife as he has to report back to base on Monday in Wales. He is a working man not just a socialite, unlike his spineless father who wants every Englishman to take a shower 1x a week to save water. What a goof!
Has anyone else noticed that in the middle clip, at 2:05, Harry checks to make sure that his fly is zippered? Seriously. Right after he hands over the program, he does the check. It says so much that he needed to be sure.
With 2 billion people watching, I’d check again too….
2 BILLION? Try lower, much lower like 50 MILLION. I will be shocked if they even got up to 200 MILLION world wide. The whole 2 Billion is bogus as was pointed out in the article, 1 Billion to watch the Olympics in China was the highest number of viewers for any world event. The networks (and the BBC) were just hyping up the event for more viewers. At the end of the day, it was just a typical wedding ceremony that we all have seen at our local churches. No fireworks and except for the Rolls Royce and open carriage, nothing extravagant.
HAHA 200 Mil buddy? Wake up pal, he’s an effing prince. That’s more than you or I will ever be on this rock. Give it up man, give it to him. I’d be surprised if 2 billion watched but still…give the Prince the credit he deserves…200 mil…more people watched the M*A*S*H* finale. I like (sarcastic) how the author’s whines, “most people were asleep if you stop and think about it”. Um, HELLO! millions of people (mostly women) woke up at 1:00AM (west coast USA) and 3:00AM (East coast) JUST to watch. I do NOT discredit the Olympics. Those games are probably the most unifying world event ever. And a Prince and heir to the royal throne getting wed, and sharing it with the world, is not far off in the way of unifying the world.
The End.
Why would anyone care about a prince from a small island in Europe that cruelly colonized half of the world and started slavery???
Oh yes. Human beings = dumb.
With so many wars and persecution, I wonder if the Arab states were watching with their love of theocracy and dying sisters/brothers? If we go by this media blitz even animals were watching this fascinating life changing spectacle!
How will we ever live again in society??
A prince? More than any of us would ever be? Sorry try again. He is a welfare baby who lives off tax-payers of the U.K. Totally useless except for walking around shaking the hand of sheep like you who worship at the feet of empty celebrity. My parents are both doctors, came out of poverty to make their own fortune as well as care for people. They save lives everyday that’s more than I can say for Mr. Welfare baby who married an unemployed woman wanting to play “princess” and start getting her own welfare checks from the U.K. public. I don’t consider the royals better than anyone nor do I think they are special. That’s pretty sad that you think they are better than you simply because they were born into a famous welfare family. Back to the article, they just said only 23 Million people watched this crap out of a nation of over 300 Million. In the U.K. only 27 Million. Those are the two major nations with the highest viewership. Sorry but no matter how bad at math sheep like you are, you don’t get 2 BILLION out of those numbers. Who knows, you may be delusional too as well as bad at math.
This time we had 11 networks instead of only 3 and a higher population than 30 years ago. All of that and only 7 million more watched these two boring people get married compared to Princess Di. Only 7 million more is pretty pathetic especially since the coverage couldn’t be avoided compared to Di’s wedding. At least Di had a more interesting story than milk toast Kate Middleton. As the person stated above, the point is the media’s hype that 2 billion people would be watching was nothing but hype. So now they are trying to spin 50 Million into being something super significant. Sorry but if Paris Hilton, Linsey Lohan or Charlie Sheen were covered by 11 networks 24/7, you will get the same amount of people watching. Americans like nothing better than watching reality t.v. of the famous and empty-headed. It’s a national past time and the reason people on MTV’s ‘Jersey Shore’ are now multi-millionaires. Ditto with the great ratings from John and Kate plus 8. Mindles garbage to entertain sheep.
Media Hype: You poor lad, I feel sorry for you.
The doom-sayers out there, you people are incredible how you like to rip historical and sophisticated things to shreds just because it doesn’t suit your own ‘social status’ in life. You see everything through a can of beer and a bowl of popcorn.
Why wouldn’t there be that amount of interest from people right around the Globe? The world doesn’t revolve around America. In population terms, you are but a pimple on the face of the earth. There are still close to 54 countries in the Commonwealth that view the UK and it’s Queen as it’s head of State and proud of the fact. That’s over 1.8 billion people (30% of the world’s population right there.)
As for the date in question. I would think William, being a rather sensitive soul, may have had some input as to this case in point – and true, it was very convenient for us Brits to have a 4 day weekend incorporating the big event – which I can say in London was HUGE – and as his Mother and Father were married on the 29th of July 1981 (not that the marriage turned out to represent much but it did produce two very engaging sons whom the British public have come to respect, protect and adore.) So yes, the 29th of April, nearly 30 years to the day (minus three months) since the last BIG Royal wedding, was probably quite appropriate, realising of course that his much loved Mother wasn’t there to share his special day. And, as far as the time. It allowed the Southern Hemisphere to watch the event live during their evening and everyone in Europe also, in fact….most of the world could watch. America and Canada had the raw end of the stick in the time factor stakes, but hey, that’s what you have a recording device for, eh what?!
Because Britain had a national holiday on Friday. BTW – That takes all of 1 millisecond to google.
Charles and Di were married on a weekday too as I recall. I remember because I pretended to be sick that day so I could stay home from school and watch the wedding. Hard to believe that was 30 years ago.
Charles and Diana’s wedding was in July… why would you have had to pretend to be sick and stay home from school?
The Abbey had already been booked on the Saturday… OK maybe not.
Harry can marry Kate whenever the hell he feels like it, and that’s exactly what he did. It’s their whim and we all worked around it didn’t we? Well at least a huge section of the world’s people managed to wring the time out to follow their wedding from a distance unless conscripted to some form of drudgery that demanded time be spent at the pleasure of the uninvited. Harry can check his fly or not, most likely the comments of millions won’t necessarily affect anything in his or his bride’s day. All the better, he does what he wants whenever he wants. That’s a bit of why I like them so both so much. We in the US are subjugated to the awful political machininations of the likes of Barack and Co., and I’d venture to say that we sort of crave this link to our root and what a contrast it is to our plight here in the US. It lends a perspective in my case, all the pomp and ceremony, even the most minor details have value. I love it, Harry doesn’t need to cater to anyone’s schedules or even bother to feign concern about it. Fantastic.
I bet you LOVED it when he wore that Nazi uniform at that party? Chuckles indeed eh old boy!
Take your point Arthur but FYI it was William that was married, Harry is still free-wheeling.
Just fyi, William married Kate. Harry is the younger brother.
How sad. People have no idea who these morons are or the signifigance of this BS campaign. Twenty three millions ignorant sheeple.
They were married on Friday because Friday was St. Katherine’s day – the feast day of Kate’s name saint.
So many more people are on WELFARE worldwide than when Diana and Charles married. Especially in the US they have no responsibilties because they are perfectly happy to be on the “dole” and have others pay for their free time.
Friday is a national holiday in the UK, so I’m happy. Who cares about the convenience of the rest of the world? We have a royal family, the Yanks don’t hahaha.
Lucky you… not really.
you can take divine right. we’ll take the bill of rights.
England had a Bill of Rights before the US even existed.
I’ll take a monarchy over that travesty ‘congress’ any day! It’s been almost three hundred years and Americans are still fighting about… yep… taxes.
i’m actually starting (just starting – like putting your toe into the edge of the water in the ocean) to see the merits of a parliamentary system instead of the bicameral congress we have. Just starting mind you…….
And brits aren’t having huge violent protests about *gasp* paying for college?
Exactly, let us not forget when Charles and Camillas car attack happened on the way to an event. The brits are still fighting and still protesting!
hey, you celebrate the most antiquated concept on earth by bowing down to someone that views you as a commoner! must feel great, congratulations! how do i learn to be you, are they holding sign-ups somewhere after tea?
What’s in a word? Do you know how you’re viewed by the ‘elite’ in this country? If you want to bow down, go to a tea party rally and bow down the the Brothers Koch.
‘Who cares about the rest of the world..’…I love it!!! That’s the type of attitude that has left the British economy in a severe recession, and with much worse things left to come. Can anyone remember when the Brits had a good economy? How many royal weddings and divorces do we need to go back to for that? The British economy makes the US economy look good.
And you can have the Windsors…what a sorry group of bloody old cows…they make the Kennedys look classy.
The wedding hype is a classic example of a human folly. The Brits worshiped their monarchs like gods. “They’re so beautiful.” “It’s the most divine and sacred wedding of all time.” “They will be together forever.” “She is the next Diana.”
The foolishness is that they love to tear down the same royals. They eagerly listen to each dirt and scandals that they hear. They gossip and spread hate even if they’ve never met any of these people. In the next years, Kate Middleton will be under pressure to live up to Diana. She will be scrutinized constantly. People will always look for any flaws in their marriage. The couple will now have to be careful about their public image as a married couple. They have to curtail the wildness, specially about being seen in the night clubs as they did before they got married. I feel sorry for these two.
Don’t worry about our Kate. Those cold dead eyes, steely smile and waiting for a DECADE to marry your boyfriend whilst maintaining a size zero figure should send a clear message to you that this girl can do this in her sleep. Not only was she not brought up posh, she has fitted in like a glove into a crazy family of privilege, wealth, inter breeding, arrogance and entitlement.
Doesn’t she look like she was born into that family?
Keep your care and affection for women in third world countries who are FORCED to marry into these families or they will risk death. Not some jumped up upstart who had a picture of the prince on her wall at Marlborough college!
TO REALIST: I am sorry, but the British economy is in it’s very sad sorry state because of it’s extremely kind social welfare system, not because of the British Monarchy. Why do you think people try to get asylum in the UK. The British tax payer supports all those who don’t work, can’t be bothered working and who never have worked a day in their lives. That’s what has brought the economy to it’s knees. It is over burdened. At least in the US if you don’t put in, you don’t get back.
Do you even know how much revenue the Monarchy, by it’s very presence, brings into the British economy each year? Without them, Britain would be nothing in a multitude of ways. Yes, the British tax payer pays, but believe you me, the country gets back one hundred fold. Not to mention the vast history and tradition of the British Pomp and Circumstance, representing style and class, or would you rather the country be summarised by it’s rather off lower belly in society, or the football hooligans smashing everything in their path or maybe the picture of protesters decimating historical landmarks, maybe that’s the imagery that you’d like tourists and foreigners to take away with them from Great Britain?
America has a bunch of famous lazy people that are rich for no good reason – we call them Kardashians
Ha!
Methinks Cupid forgot the Yanks kicked British ass to rid themselves of the Royals, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Enjoy your long weekend!
And you have been trying to emulate them ever since!
In retrospect, I should’ve started a drinking game where everyone takes a shot of vodka everytime a news reporter says the phrase “it’s like a fairy tale!”
Fu Britain. I honestly don’t get why people should give a damn about this wedding or the entire royal family for that matter. Fu britan.
The music that was gifted to the world by those folks is priceless, of course. You can keep the royals, however, unless a lesbian themed sex tape featuring the princess appears.
o yeah those 2 look real happy…why did they feel they had to even get married, I thought Diana was healthy, liberal influence on William…o well, they are in for a royal pain in the ass life-but money helps.
who ever said the bill of rights is hilarious because we all know american is the most equal country in the world. also the royal family is as useful as 95% of the people in hollywood, whom you keep giving 100 of millions of dollars every summer for gems such as transformer 2. i am not british put i would rather pay $10 to watch these two get married rather than megan fox trying to act. (i’am afraid rosie wont be much of an improvement)
What?
At least Megan Fox doesn’t rely on the public for her upkeep and PR to make her look relevant.
Except…she actually does.
I like watching royals too, but more useful than 95% of Hollywood? When people can pay for their products or not, but British taxpayers had to foot at least some of the bill for the wedding?
Why anyone would care about the bald redheaded guy and the cute random brunette’s wedding is just beyond me. Boring and irrelevant is an understatement
And I am betting you will sneak a little peak yourself just to see what all the fuss is about. Be sure to learn something while you are doing just that!
I love that people who say they don’t care at all about it go around telling everyone who’ll listen how very much they don’t care. haha
I would have to agree with the British officials estimate that the Royal Wedding would be watched by 2 billion people worldwide. I know people in countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, India, China, even Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan who watched the entire event on their illegal satellites (these number are not tracked). Once you include the live views via internet and the viewers who saw recorded showing later on during the day… it could easily be over 2 billion eyeballs worldwide.
P.S. To the person who posted “I really don’t understand why they had to marry on Friday and not on Saturday”
I think Friday is the perfect day for a wedding for a Christian, since it is the Sabbath. This is the day I go to Church for Mass instead of Sunday.
David these countries are very theocratic. You must only worship a monarch or you risk death. It would make sense why this would be watched by so many who have nothing to do with them and at one time were enslaved by the British.
I can see that whilst one people are struggling to feed their families, saving and making time to watch a royal wedding, is very important.
Another tip, I wouldn’t trust the British media with ANYTHING but hyperbole.
If there’s one thing Americans can be counted on for, it’s watching TV.
Yep, particularly when so many are unemployed. No big deal to get up at 4am to watch a wedding when you don’t have a job to go to…
well bangladesh has a ratings systen called the national media survey, they dont publish often though, also they only publish in local newspapers
The analyst who said most of the world was asleep at the time of the wedding has it totally backwards. At Noon in the UK most of the world is awake… It’s basically only America that is still asleep.
6m in Australia.
The BBC’s estimate would be just about right because most people in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica and South Africa were tuned to the BBC and commited in watching it by putting on generators. Also, people in Asia are not to be left out – we need fairy tales now and then.
Lol, no one on those countries were watching. You’re speaking out of your backside and you must either be some creepy royalist who ignores the dead eyes that Katie has and that ALL royal weddings are arrangements-did you not do history??? You can’t be English!?-or work for the BBC.
The Nigerians HATE the UK!! The way the English treated them as colonies! Helllooo….
I know this is all so depressing that some of us are not obsessed about worshiping a bunch of ignoramus, entitled land thieves but as is life.
Enlightenment came for a reason.
Since Charles and Diana’s wedding there are more cable channels and more networks . Did Fox exisit when Charles and Diana got married
Population in Ghana is around 25 million and no everyone has tv . Nigeria is about 140 million And again tv ownership is limited .people would most likely view an event like this in a group . Plus most people around the world had to work
If you recall from the service, someone mentioned that it was also the feast day of St Catherine of Siena
maybe that is why Friday 29th was chosen?
Anything that makes Americans feel uncomfortable gets my vote.
It is sad to know there are 23 million idiots in the US. I can’t blame all of them. The welfare wedding was on EVERY network and news channel that painful morning. The media shoved it down the throats of Americans. It is simply another example of the media creating, rather than reporting, relevant news. Seriously, good luck to the newlyweds, but why should it be such an event? The royals represent an Empire that is loooooong gone. They have no power. They are simply a drain on those saps that pay taxes in Great Britain.
The media coverage surprised the hell out of me. I expected to wake up and watch my daily news instead I got a bunch wedding coverage that I could care less about. Just wait till the british public tears them down. We all know its coming!
Some of us think it’s romantic to see a Prince and Princess be wed–doesn’t make people idiotic to watch it. It’s a fairy tale little girls dream about and that was watched primarily by women (though I didn’t). Nobody held a gun to your head–we have DVR if you HAD to watch tv at 4AM.
The Royal Family bring in more money to the UK economy than is spent on them. Look at the Wedding – there were presenters, broadcasters from practically every country in the world. Try booking a hotel or getting a flight to London for last week – pretty impossible. I don’t really care about the monarchy but there are the UK’s best tourism attraction.
I do love the timing of the wedding though just after Easter. 4 day week, 3 day week, 4 day week. Best thing about the wedding was the bank holiday.
Nice to see some positive and also precise feedback Allie. Most people just clutch at straws, taking stabs in the dark, without having any knowledge of what they are talking about.
Of course the British Monarchy is the best drawing card in Britain. The tourism alone brings in a massive amount of revenue. The country is put on a pedestal because of the grace and elegance that the respect for the Royal family conjures up. True, there has been the odd family member who has failed in a few areas but remember the spot light and long range hearing devices are pointed at them 24/7 who wouldn’t get a tad antsy at that sort of unimaginable stalking. And when you are talking about Queen Elizabeth, she has been the ultimate professional and let’s just hope her siblings can follow in her graceful path.
I agree, Echo. And I’m in the demographic (women over 40) that is supposed to love this sort of thing. I like to watch the morning news to see what the weather and traffic is like, and all I got was three channels of this nonsense.
There are 308,745,538 people in the U.S. so less than 10 percent watched this spectacle. And I wonder where this 2 billion figure came from. How was it estimated? But I am embarrassed by the media folks salivating over these people. Didn’t we fight a war to be free from these royal Britiots? Tom Paine, John Adams, etc., must be whirling in their graves.
As for the 2 billion figure, how was that calculated?
I should have added that for what it cost to have more than 7000 media types and hundreds of thousands of tourists witness this non event a third wordd country could have been fed for a year.
Bravo to the Brits. It was a brilliant day, where people actually attended church, dressed properly, and honored not only religion and God but also tradition, culture, and beauty. The net economic result will be positive and certainly the educational result (exposing young people to the rites and traditions) positive. You could take every penny of all the royals put together and the sluggards of the country would have it all spent in a year.
Yes, it was St. Catherine’s day – that is why Friday was chosen. It is the feast day of Kate’s name saint.