Prince William and Kate Middleton's royal wedding enters top 10 of most-watched programmes in British TV history
NEARLY 25 million Britons tuned in to the royal wedding on TV, making it one of the 10 most-watched programmes in history.
The global audience is estimated to have been two billion – almost one in every three people on Earth.
Here, almost 18.7 million tuned to BBC1 with 5.9 million watching ITV1.
But the figure is way behind the 32.3 million who were glued to the 1966 World Cup Final – which pipped the 32.1 million who watched Princess Diana’s 1997 funeral.
Kate and Wills also had fewer viewers than the 28.4 million tuned to Di’s marriage to Charles in 1981 and the 27.6 million who watched Princess Anne wed Mark Phillips in 1973. But not one royal wedding could match Den and Angie’s divorce in EastEnders, which drew in 30 million.
The BBC’s deputy director general Mark Byford said: “The huge audience is a testament to all those involved.”
Millions more watched the wedding online in Britain and around the world. Yahoo experienced its highest traffic for a live video event, surpassing coverage of Michael Jackson’s funeral by 21%.
Celebrations for the royal wedding have boosted Britain’s coffers by almost £2billion. The festivities generated an extra £600million for UK tourism – on top of £1.2billion spent on food and drink.
Comments