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http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Wedding viewing figures http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1304182274 Message started by Administrator on Apr 30^th, 2011, 4:52pm

Title: Wedding viewing figures
Post by Administrator on Apr 30^th, 2011, 4:52pm

This is taken from Broadcast Online:

Royal wedding ties knot with 26m
30 April, 2011 | By Jake Kanter

One of the biggest audiences in UK television history watched Prince William and Kate Middleton exchange vows during the royal wedding.

A combined peak audience of 26.17m watched the newly-anointed Duke and Duchess of Cambridge tie the knot at 11.15am across BBC1, ITV1, BBC News, Sky News and Sky Living (including HD figures).

An extraordinary 93.24% of the available audience were tuned into the spectacle, according to overnight Barb figures supplied by Attentional.

The peak came just as the royal couple repeated their vows before the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at Westminster Abbey.

Although the figure should rise once consolidated, it failed to match the audience of 28.4m that Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding secured in 1981.

Currently it is set to be the tenth biggest UK TV audience in history, just in front of a 1996 instalment of Only Fool’s and Horses, which amused 24.35m. It is below the 26.93m viewers that saw Alan Bradley killed by tram in Coronation Street.

A record audience for Prince William and Middleton’s marriage was widely tipped after the National Grid reported a surge in electricity use of 2,400 megawatts (MW) when the newlyweds arrived at Buckingham Palace.

Many news outlets meanwhile have predicted that the global audience for the spectacle could reach as much as 2bn – although this has been dismissed as an exaggeration by some media experts.

Attentional figures do not include CNN or the number of people that watched online. The latter is likely to be high, given that the BBC website crashed under sheer weight of traffic.

A BBC statement said the increase in user numbers, which would not have been unexpected, caused the site “to be slower than normal in some cases”.

BBC Ten O’Clock news anchor Huw Edwards was charged with overseeing the ceremony for BBC1 with historian Simon Schama providing context.

The coverage, which struck a more sober tone than ITV’s broadcast, unsurprisingly proved most popular with viewers. It peaked a 12.20pm with 19.29m (68.93%) viewers across BBC1 and BBC1 HD as the royal couple enjoyed their procession to Buckingham Palace from Westminster Abbey.

The coverage averaged 13.43m (62.82%) viewers from 8am to 1.40pm, breaking for the news, before returning at 2.10pm with 5.4m (34.97%) viewers up to 4pm.
Highlights of the day tied the knot with an average audience of 4.85m (20.78%) from 8.30pm to 10pm on BBC1 and BBC1 HD.

Meanwhile, the BBC News channel peaked with 521,100 (1.84%) at 12.10pm and averaged 362,100 (1.69%) from 8am to 1.40pm – the same period as the first half of BBC1’s coverage.

ITV

ITV’s coverage has been widely recognised for striking the best tone, with critics and Twitter users praising the work of hosts Phillip Schofield and Julie Etchingham.

The commercial broadcaster’s coverage peaked at 11.10am with 6m (21.72%) and averaged 4.4m (21.35%) on ITV1 and ITV1 HD from 8.30am to 4.05pm. An additional 50,900 (0.25%) watched on time-adjusted ITV1+1.

Sky

The action on Sky News was anchored by Eamonn Holmes and peaked at 11.10am with 713,600 (2.57%). Coverage of the service and procession averaged 635,300 (2.33%) from 11am to 1pm.
Sky Living’s broadcast of the service itself averaged 70,500 (0.25%) from 11am to 1pm.